The glory of the trenches; an interpretation

THE GLORY
OF THE TRENCHES

BY THE SAME AUTHOR

CARRY ON:

Letters in Wartime

SLAVES OF FREEDOM

THE RAFT

THE GARDEN WITHOUT
WALLS

THE SEVENTH CHRISTMAS

THE UNKNOWN COUNTRY

THE ROAD TO AVALON

FLORENCE ON A CERTAIN
NIGHT

THE WORKER AND OTHER
POEMS

LIEUTENANT CONINGSBY DAWSON

CANADIAN FIELD ARTILLERY

THE GLORY
OF THE TRENCHES

AN INTERPRETATION

BY

CONINGSBY DAWSON

Author of ' '

"Carry 0\: Letters in Wartime," etc.

WITH AN INTRODUCTION

BY HIS FATHER, W. J. DAWSON

"The glory is all in the souls of the men

— it's nothing external." — From '''Carry On"

NEW YORK: JOHN LANE COMPANY
LONDON: JOHN LANE, THE BODLEY HEAD
TORONTO: S. B. GUNDY .-. .-. MCMXVIII

' J iA\

Copyright, 1917, 1918
3y International Magazine Company

Copyright, 1918
By John Lane Company

TO YOU AT HOME

Each night we panted till the runners came,

Bearing your letters through the battle-smoke.
Their path lay up Death Valley spouting flame,

Across the ridge zchere the Hun's anger spoke
hi bursting shells and cataracts of pain;

Then dozvn the road where no one goes by day.
And so into the tortured, pockmarked plain

IVhcrc dead men clasp their wounds and point the way.
Here gas lurks treacherously and the wire

Of old defences tangles up the feet;
Faces and hands strain upivard through the mire.

Speaking the anguish of the Hun's retreat.
Sometimes no letters came; the evening hate

Dragged on till dawn. The ridge in flying spray
Of hissing shrapnel told the runners' fate;

We knew ive should not hear from you that day —
From you, who from the trenches of the mind

Hurl back despair, smiling with sobbing breath.
Writing your souls on paper to be kind.

That you for us may take the sting from Death.

CONTENTS

PACE

To You AT Home. (Poem) 5

How This Book Was Written .... 9

In Hospital, (Poem) 18

The Road to Blighty 19

The Lads Away. (Poem) 52

The Growing of the Vision 53

The Glory of the Trenches. (Poem) . 104
God as We See Him ^ „ ^ . . . . 105

HOW THIS BOOK WAS WRITTEN

In my book, The Father of a Soldier, I have
already stated the conditions under which this
book of my son's was produced.

He was wounded in the end of Tune. 19 17, in
the fierce struggle before Lens, tie was at once
removed to a base-hospital, and later on to a
military hospital in London. There \vas gxajue.
danger of amputation of the _ri£ht_ arrn, but this
wa^ happily avoided. As soon as he could use
his hand he was commandeered by the Lord High
Commissioner of Canada to write an important
paper, detailing the history of the Canadian
forces in France and Flanders. This task kept
him busy until the end of August, when he ob-
tained a leave of two months to come home. He
arrived in New York in September, and returned
again to London in the end of October.

The plan of the book grew out of his conversa-
tion swTIHljs~alti3THelTnTFpuGIT^
he juade^ The idea hacT already been suggested
to him by his London publisher, Mr. John Lane.
He had written a few hundred words, but had no

9

t

lo INTRODUCTION

very keen sense of the value of the experiences
he had been invited to relate. He had not even
read his own published letters in Carry On. He
said he had begun to read them when the book
reached him in the trenches, but they made him
homesick, and he was also afraid that his own
estimate of their value might not coincide with
ours, or with the verdict which the public has
since passed upon them. Hf^ rfynrdfH hr; own
experiences, which we found so thrilling, irTtlie'
sarneJipTrTTof modesT~9eprec^ — They were
tht .commonplaces, pj_the_|i?e whkh Jiehad ledV
and he was sensitive, lest .they should be regarded
as improperly heroic. No one was more aston-

ished than he when he found great throngs eager
tQ_^hear him speak. The people assembled ah
hour before the advertised time, they stormed
the building as soon as the doors were open, and
when every inch of room was packed they found
a way in by the windows and a fire-escape. This
public, .appredation, of his, message indicated_a
value in it which he had not suspected, and led
him to recognise that what he had to say was
warlhy of more than -a,, fugitive utteraiice on a
public platform. He at once took up the ta k
of^writing this Ijook^ wTt]SjJ^e£iiine_an3~cIeTi"ghted
Siirpr i S£_that he had not 1^*^^ l"*^'*^ 1*"^^^^ ^^ anthnr.^
ship. He had but a month to devote to it, but hj

^

INTRODUCTION ii

dint of daily diligence, amid many interruptions
of a social nature, he finished his task before he
left. The concluding lines were actually written
on the last night before he sailed for England.

\\^fc__chscussed several titles for the book. Th£._^_^
Rrliqinn pf Hrrnixtn was the title Suggested by
I^Ir. John Lane, but this appeared too didactic and
restrictive. I suggested Souls in Kli-aki. but this
admirable title had already been appropriated.

Lastly, we decided on The Glory of the Trenches.

as the most expressive of his aim. He felt that
^ crrPQt r]p^| fr^r> niii^h hfi^l hf^m nnid nbnut thp
squalor, fiU^\ disr^mff^rt nnd snffpring nf_ tlie_
trenches. He^jointed out that a very popular

wax-book which Wf wprp thon rpnrb'np- harl giv
paragraph*:; in the fir^t Q1•vt^■ pngpg wj-nVV^ (\q.
scrftjcd in unpleasant detail the verminouij condi-
tion of the men, as if this werp the chief thing to • . •
be^eiuarked concerning them. He held that it — J!-
was a mistake for a writer to lay too much stresf
on the horrors of war^ The effect was bad physi-
ologically — it frlg-htpned the parents of soldiers ;
i t ^yr\<; prjnnlly hnd for the enlistcd man himsel f j
for it created a false imprg^sion jn T^i'^ ^nind
VV&JIJl knew that war was-liurrihlp. but as a rule
t]ie soldier thought little of this feature in his lot.
It4ju]ked large to the civilian who resented incon-
veniftoce and discomfort., because he had only

12

INTRODUCTION

y

1/

kjiownjtheir__oppQsii;es ; but the soldier's real
thoughts were_concerned with" other things. He
^'v^as__engaged in s£irituaL acts. I^^^w^s^ accom-
plkhi^g spiritual pnrpnspc; as truly as the martyr
of_iaith and religion. He was moved by spir-
ituaLJmpulses, Jhe evocation of ._duty^ Jiie=4c^^
depjendence of comradeshijp, the spirit of sacrifice,
ihe f omplete surrender of the body to the will
of the soul. This was the side of war which men
needed most to recognise. They needed it not
only_bejcause it was the true sTde^TTul^Because
nothing else jiquld kindle ^ncTstlstaTh tTie enduring
flame of heroism^m men^s hearts.

While-SOJTieerredin exhibiting nothing but the
brutalities of war, others erred by sentimentaTis-
ing_^war. He admitted that it was perfectly pos-
sible to paint a portrait of a soldier with the
aureole of a saint, but it would not be a repre-
sentative portrait. It would be eclectic, the result
of selection elimination. It would be as unlike
the common average as Rupert Brooke, with his
poet's face and poet's heart, was unlike the ordi-
nary naval officers with whom he sailed to the
^gean.

The.^o^dinary soldier is an intensely human
creature, with an ^'^ endearing blend of faults and
virtues." The romantic ..juethod of portraying
hinuiQtJjnly-misrepresentedJiigi. but its result is

INTRODUCTION 13

far. Ip';'^ imprr';«;ivp thnn a pnrtrnif painfed in the
firm lines of reality. Therms an austere gran-
Hpiir in \h^ rp.nlitv of what he js and does which
needs no fine gilding" from the sentimentalist.
To depict him as a Sir Galaliad in holy armour
is as serious an offence as to exhibit him as a
Caliban of marred clay; each method fails of
truth, and all that the soldier needs to be known
about him, that men should honour him, is the
truth.

WJiat^my son aimed at in writing this book was
tojtgJl_thg,tIl^th ahnnt iluiiiieii Avho werc his com-
r^es, in so f aL.as. JLjYas ..gij^ gj\ hjm to see it.
-Hp wf^g in haste to write while the impression
^nas fresh in his mind, for he knew how soon the
fine edge of these impressions grew dull as they
receded from the immediate area of vision. " If
I wait till the war is over, I shan't be able to
write of it at all," he said. " You've noticed that
old soldiers are very often silent men. They've
hnd thf;ir r^owdod hours of glpriO"'^ ^''^^, ^^^''^ they
ra-rpJY |p11 yon xim(;h al>out them. I remember
you used to tell me that you once knew a man who
sailed with Napoleon to St. Helena, but all he
could tell you was that Napoleon had a fine leg
and wore white silk stockings. If he'd written
down his impressions of Napoleon day by day as
he watched him walking the deck of the Bcllcro-

1^

14 INTRODUCTION

plwttj he'd have told you a great deal more about
him than that he wore white silk stockings. If
I ivaii;...till.,th£-waris over before I write about it,'
it's very likely I sliall recollect only trivial details,
and the big heroic spirit of the thing will escape
me. There's only one way of recording an im-
pression — catch it while it's fresh, vivid, vital ;
shoot it on the wing. If you wait too long it will
vanish." It was because he felt in this way that
he wrote in red-hot haste, sacrificing his brief
leave to the task, and concentrating all his mind
upon it.

Tliere was one.impressionlliat,h£_jffi3.s^p^aTtku^^
larly anxious to record, — his sense of the spir-
itual processes which worked behind the grim
offence of war, the new birth of religious ideas,
which was one of its most wonderful results.
He had both witnessed and shared this renas-
cence. It was too indefinite, too immature to be
chronicled with scientific accuracy, but it was
authentic and indubitable. It was atmospheric,
a new air which men breathed, producing new en-
ergies and forms of thought. Men-were redis-
coYfidngi -themselves, their own forgotten nobili-
tieSj__the -^latent nobilities in all men. Bound
together m__the.jiaily .obedience of -self -surrender,
urged by the conditions of their task to regard
duty as inexorable, confronted by the pitiless, de-

INTRODUCTION 15

struction of the body^ they were forcedjnto a
new recognition of the spiritual vakies of Hfe.
luOllg^ common conventional use of the term these
men were not relii;ious. There was much in
their speecli and in their conduct which would
outrage the standards of a narrow pietism. Tra-
ditional creeds and forms of faith had scant
authority for them. But they had made their
own a surer faith than lives in creeds. It. was
expressed not in wftrd*^ hnt n^ts They had freed
thejr souls from the tyrannies of time and the
icar of death. Thay hac^ accomplished indee
that^very emancipation of the soul which is jth
essential evangel of all religions, which all reli-
gions urge on men, hnf which f^^y mcnreallv
achieve, however earnestly they profess the forms
of pious faith.

This was the true Glory of the Trenches.
Th^y:>^-ere the Calvaries of a new redemption
being wrought out for men by soiled unconscious
ClirTsts. And, as from that ancient Calvary,
with all its agony of shame, torture and derelic-
tion, there flowed a flood of light which made a
new dawn for the world; "o frnm thyri^ '^hn'-nrr
rriir;riYi'nTi5_^here would come to men a ne\v reve-
int-iV-n r^f |]in splcndour of the human soul^ the
tiu. rJiviHi'ty t1i-it dw^-ll^ in maij^the God made <7^
n;;mifcbt in the flesh by acts of valour, heroism, ^S^

^

[l6 INTRODUCTION

and self-sacrifice which transcend the instincts
an^^promptings of tlie flesh, and b'eaiT'witness to
the indestructible Hfe of the spirit ^^"^ ^

It is to express these thoughts and convictions
that this book was written. It is a recdrd 6t'
things deeply felt, seen and experienced — this,
first of all and chiefly. The lesson of what is
recorded is incidental and implicit. It is left to
the discovery of the reader, and yet is so plainly
indicated that he cannot fail to discover it. We
shall all see this war quite wrongly, and shall in-
terpret it by imperfect and base equivalents, if
we see it only as a human struggle for human
ends. We-^hall^jrr_jt[etjnore mi^^serabl if all our
thougjbtsjand sensations about it are drawn from
its j)hysical horror, " the^_.de formations of our
common manhood " on.th£-battlefield,-^the-hQpe-
1e.qs-j^g_stg_?^^nd havoc of it all. We shall only
viCT^Jl in its real_per^sp>ectixejyhen wejrecognise
the-^-spirilual impulses which direct it, and the
strange spiritual efiicacy that is in it to burn out
the_deep-fibred cancer of doubt and decadence
whijchhas long threatened civilisation with a slow
corrupt death. Seventy-five years ago Mrs.
Browning, writing on The Greek Christian Poets,
used a striking sentence to which the condition
of human thought to-day lends a new emphasis.
** We want," she said, ** the touch of Christ's

INTRODUCTION 17

hand upon our literature, as it touched other dead
things — we want the sense of the saturation of
Christ's blood upon the souls of our poets that it
may cry through them in answer to the ceaseless
wail of the Sphinx of our humanity, expounding
agony into renovation. Something of this has
been perceived in art when its glory was at the
fullest." ItJ^s this glory of divine sacrifice which
is, the Glory of tlie Trenches. It js because the >V^
N\- riter recognises this that he is able to walk un~
di^maved among things terrible and dismaying^ j^
and to expound agony mto renovation!

W. J. Dawson.
February, 19 18.

r(\A

IN HOSPITAL

Hushed and happy whiteness.

Miles on miles of cots.
The glad contented brightness

Where sunlight falls in spots.

Sisters swift and saintly

Seem to tread on grass;
Like flowers stirring faintly,

Heads turn to watch them pass.

'Beauty, blood, and sorrow.

Blending in a trance —
Eternity's to-morrow

In this half-way house of France.

Sounds of whispered talking,
Laboured indrawn breath;

Then like a young girl walking
The dear familiar Death.

THE
GLORY OF THE TRENCHES

I

THE ROAD TO BLIGHTY

I am in hospital in London, lying between
clean white sheets and feeling, for the first time
in months, clean all over. At the end of the
ward there is a swinging door; if I listen in-
tently in the intervals when the gramophone isn't
playing, I can hear the sound of bath-water run-
ning— running in a reckless kind of fashion as
if it didn't care how much was wasted. Tojiie,
so-*e€ently out of the fighting and so short a time
iV PJi'trlify^ I't sppnm thp finest music in the world.
Foc^tlif; ^hoor liixury of the contrast I close my
*'y^*^"*^'"''""^^ f1i^ Jnly <;:imi;rr1if -ij],] jma^^ine mysel f
back in one of those narrow dug-outs where it
itin'f- thp fhi'nrr [p undrcss bccuusc the row may
staxt_iLLiiii>LJ2iLn ute.

Out-llmrc in France we used to tell one another

fairy-talcs of how we would spend the first year"

Tg

20 THE GLORY OF THE TRENCHES

of life when war -was ended. One man had a
baby whom he'd never seen ; another a girl whom
he was anxious to marry. IVly dream was more
prosaic, but no less ecstatic — it began and ended
with, a Jarge,3yhit.e.,b.edLand a large white bath.
For the first three hundred and sixty-five morn-
ings after peace had been declared I was to be
wakened by the sound of my bath being filled;
water was to be so plentiful that I could tumble
off to sleep again without even troubling to turn
off the tap. In ^France one has_ to go dirty so^
often Jhatjhe^dream of being always clean seems
as unrealisable as romance™ TTurdfiiilving- wafer
is f ceg uen tlylSrougHt up to us at the risk of men's
livL^Sj carried through tTiF~mud"m petrol-cans
strapped on to packhorses. To use_It carelessly
wnnid he likp washingjn men's blood

And here, most marvellously, with my dream
come true, I lie in the whitest of white beds.
The sunlight filters through trees outside the win-
dow and weaves patterns on the floor. Most
wonderful of all is the sound of the water so
luxuriously running. Some one hops out of bed
and re-starts the gramophone. The music of
the bath-room tap is lost.

Up and down the ward, with swift precision,
nurses move softly. They have the unanxious
eyes of those whose days are mapped out with

THE GLORY OF THE TRENCHES 21

duties. They rarely notice us as individuals.
They ask no questions, show no curiosity. Their
deeds of persistent kindness are all performed im-
personally. It's the same with the doctors. This
is a military hospital where discipline is firmly
enforced; any natural recognition of common
fineness is discouraged. These w^omen who have
pledged themselves to live among suffering, never
allow themselves for a moment to guess what the
sight of them means to us chaps in the cots.
Perhaps that also is a part of their sacrifice. But
we follow them with our eyes, and we wish that
they would allow themselves to guess. For so
many months we have not seen a woman; there
have been so many hours when we expected never
again to see a woman. \YeVeLazaruses ex-
h uctTcd and restored to normal ways of_^life"5y
the fluke of having collected a bit of shrapnel —

"we haven't yet got used_to_normal wa"ysr The
mere rustle of a woman's skirt fills us with unrea-
sonable delight and makes the eyes smart with
memories of old longings. Tiingp childish Iring-
ings of the trenches! No one can understand
them who has not Ix^en there, where all personal
airtis are a wash-out and the courage to endure
remgms one's sole_possession.

The sisters at the Casualty Clearing Station —
they understood. The Casualty Gearing Station

i22 THE GLORY OF THE TRENCHES

is the first hospital behind the line to which the
wounded are brought down straight from the
Dressing-Stations. All day and all night ambu-
lances come lurching along shell-torn roads to
their doors. The men on the stretchers are still
in their bloody tunics, rain-soaked, pain-silent,
splashed with the corruption of fighting — their
bodies so obviously smashed and their spirits so
obviously unbroken. The nurses at the Casualty
Clearing Station can scarcely help but under-
stand. They can afford to be feminine to men
who are so weak. Moreover, they are near
enough the Front to share in the sublime exalta-
tion of those who march out to die. They know
when a big offensive is expected, and prepare for
it. They are warned the moment it has com-
menced by the distant thunder of the guns.
Then comes the ceaseless stream of lorries and
ambulances bringing that which has been broken
so quickly to them to be patched up in months.
They work day and night with a forgetfulness of
self which equals the devotion of the soldiers they
are tending. Despite their orderliness they seem
almost fanatical in their desire to spend them-
selves. They are always doing, but they can
never do enough. It's the same with the sur-
geons. I know of one who during a great attack
operated for forty-eight hours on end and finally

THE GLORY OF THE TRENCHES 23

went to sleep where he stood from utter weari-
ness. The picture that forms in my mind of
these women is absurd, Arthurian and exact ; I
see them as great ladies, medic-eval in their saint-
liness, sharing the pollution of the battle with
their champions.

Lying here with nothing to worry about in the
green serenity of an English summer, I realize
that no man can grasp the splendour of this war
until he has made the trip to Blighty on a
stretcher. What I mean is this: s^long as a
figliting man kpppa_i\:clL__his_expmence of ^he
Nv aiL.consists of muddy roads leading up through
a desolated country to holes in the ground, in
which he spends most of his time watchjng other
holes in the ground, which people tell_him are the
Hun front-line. This experience is punctuated
by,geriods during which the earth shoots up about
him tik£_com poppinp^ in a pan, and he experiences

th^jnsanfst fear, jf h(^'<^ mnrip thnf- wny nr tliP

rnost satisfying kind of joy. About once a year
something happens which, when it's over, he
scarcely believes has happened : he's told that he
can run away to England and pretend that there
isn't any war on for ten days. For those ten
days, so far as he's concerned, hostilities are sus-
pended. He rides post-haste through ravaged
villages to the point from which the train starts.

24 THE GLORY OF THE TRENCHES

Up to the very last moment until the engine pulls
out, he's quite panicky lest some one shall come
and snatch his warrant from him, telling him
that leave has been cancelled. He makes his
journey in a carriage in which all the windows
are smashed. Probably it either snows or rains.
During the night while he stamps his feet to
keep warm, he remembers that in his hurry to
escape he's left all his Hun souvenirs behind.
During his time in London he visits his tailor at
least twice a day, buys a vast amount of unnec-
essary kit, sleeps late, does most of his resting
in taxi-cabs, eats innumerable meals at restau-
rants, laughs at a great many plays in which life
at the Front is depicted as a joke. He feels
dazed and half suspects that he isn't in London
at all, but only dreaming in his dug-out. Some
days later he does actually wake up in his dug-
out; the only proof he has that he's been on leave
is that he can't pay his mess-bill and is minus a
hundred pounds. TTnti] ^ mart j^ '^'^"jldf'^ ^^
orily sees the war from the point of view of the
front-line and consequently, asT"say, misses Tialf
its splendour, fojiJieis-Jgnorant^QLthe greatness
of •the- heart that hpafg bfhlndJilm all along the
lines of communication. Here in brief is how
I found this out.

The dressing-station to which I went was un-

THE GLORY OF THE TRENCHES 25

derneath a ruined house, under full observation
of the Hun and in an area which was heavily
shelled. On account of the shelling and the fact
that any movement about the place would attract
attention, the wounded were only carried out by
night. Moreover, to get back from the dressing-
station to the collecting point in rear of the lines,
the ambulances had to traverse a white road over
a ridge full in view of the enemy. The Huns
kept guns trained on this road and opened fire
at the least sign of traffic. When I presented
myself I didn't think that there was anything
seriously the matter; my arm had swelled and
was painful from a wound of three days' stand-
ing. The doctor, however, recognised that septic
poisoning had set in and that to save the arm an
operation was necessary without loss of time.
He called a sergeant and sent him out to consult
with an ambulance-driver. " This officer ought
to go out at once. Are you willing to take a
chance?" asked the sergeant. The ambulance-
driver took a look at the chalk road gleaming
white in the sun where it climbed the ridge.
" Sure, Mike," he said, and ran off to crank his
engine and back his car out of its place of con-
cealment. "Sure, Mike." — that was all. He'd
have said the same if he'd l)een asked whether
he'd care to take a chance at Hell.

V

■26 THE GLORY OF THE TRENCHES

I have three vivid memories of that drive. The
first, my own uneasy sense that I was deserting.
Frankly J ciidn^jaajit to go out; few men do
when_.it.x.omes_to the point. TEFTronthas its"
own pernliar exhilnrntlnn, h>^ hig game^mtmg.'
discovering the North Pole, or anything that's
dangerous; and it has its own peculiar reward —
thg peace of mind that comes of doing something
beyond dispute unselfish and superlatively worth
wiijle. It's odd. buL-itlsJjue that in the front-
line many a man experiences peace of mind for
the first time and grows a little afraid of :i retufii
to normal ways of life. I\Iv second memory is
of the wistful faces of the chaps whom we passed
along the road. At the unaccustomed sound of
a car travelling in broad daylight the Tommies
poked their heads out of hiding-places like rab-
bits. Such dirty Tommies ! How could they
be otherwise living forever on old battlefields?
If they were given time for reflection they
wouldn't want to go out; they'd choose to stay
with the game till the war was ended. But we
caught them unaware, and as they gazed after
us down the first part of the long trail that leads
back from the trenches to Blighty, there was hun-
ger in their eyes. My third memory is of
kindness.

You wouldn't think that men would go to war

THE GLORY OF THE TRENCHES 27

to learn how to be kind — but thev do^ There's
nn Winder cre^p^re in the vvhnlp wi'dp Wf^rld than
thcL^-erage Tommy. Hf m;il:pn n frirnd nf nn^r
straA' nniT-nnj h^ r^n find He shares his last
franc with a chap who isn't his pal. He risks ^

hi.^ life qin'te inron^pgnpntly tr> rpgnip ^^y__rM'\(^ ^

\vho's wounded. When he's gone over the top
^v ith lK>mh and haynnpf fnr fVie ^vprpcc^ p^i^pqc^
O f " doing in " th(^ HUH, he mnkpg n rnn^rnd^ O f
tlae^Fritzie he captures. You'll see hini _coming
clown the battered trenches with some sCP^^d Ind
ofia German at his side. He's gabbling away
making throat-noises and signs, smiling and doing
his inarticulate best to be intelligible. He pats the
Hun on the back, hands him chocolate and ciga-
rettes, exchanges souvenirs and shares with him
his last luxury. If any one interferes with his
Frjtzie he's willing to fight. \\'hen they come
to the cage where the prisoner has to be handed
over, the farewells of these companions whose
acquaintance has been made at the bayonet-point
are often as absurd as they are affecting. I sup-
pose one only learns the value of kindness wHen~
he feels the need of it himself. TJi£_in£ii . out
there have said *' Good-bye " to evervthinjr they
1< tvG^j, but they've ^ot \q Igye ^Qrnp one — gn thpy
gi ve their affections to rnptnred E^i^^ipg, «^t|-py
(fegs^ Jfllnws who'vexollccted a piece ol -a shell

)h

28 THE GLORY OF THE TRENCHES

— in_f act to any one who's a little worse off than
themselves. My ambulance-driver was like~!hat
with his"~Sure, Mike." He was like it during
the entire drive. When he came to the white
road which climbs the ridge with all the enemy
country staring at it, it would have been excusable
in him to have hurried. The Hun barrage might
descend at any minute. All the way, in the
ditches on either side, dead pack animals lay; in
the dug-outs there were other unseen dead
making the air foul. But he drove slowly and
gently, skirting the shell-holes with diligent care
so as to spare us every unnecessary jolting. I
don't know his name, shouldn't recognise his
face, but I shall always remember the almost
womanly tenderness of his driving.

After two changes into other ambulances at
different distributing points, I arrived about nine
on a summer's evening at the Casualty Clearing
Station. In something less than an hour I was
undressed and on the operating table.

You might suppose that when for three in-
terminable years such a stream of tragedy has
flowed through a hospital, it would be easy for
surgeons and nurses to treat mutilation and death
perfunctorily. Thoy^don^L They >shQWJiaxmQ-
tion. They are even cheerful; but their strained

THE GLORY OF THE TRENCHES 29

face^4#U.Jli£ ston^ and their hands have an im-
mense compassion. "' "

Two faces especially loom out. I can always
see them by lamp-light, when the rest of the ward
is hushed and shrouded, stooping over some silent
bed. One face is that of the Colonel of the hos-
pital, grey, concerned, pitiful, stern. His eyes
seem to have photographed all the suffering which
in three years tliey have witnessed. He's a tall
man. but he moves softly. Over his uniform he
wears a long white operating smock — he never
seems to remove it. And he never seems to sleep,
for he comes wandering through his Gethsemane
all hours of the night to bend over the more
serious cases. He seems haunted by a vision of
the wives, mothers, sweethearts, whose happiness
is in his hands. I think of him as a Christ in
khaki.

The -Other f'^ce is of a girl — a sister I ought
Xo call^her. She's the nearest approach to a
sculptured Greek goddess I've se^n i" a tiymg
woraaiL She's very tall, very pale and golden,
%vith wide brows and big grey eyes like Trilby.
I wonder what she did before she went to war —
for she's gone to war just as truly as any soldier,
I'nr-MuiiLjndTe peaceful years she must have
spent a lot of time in being loved. Perhaps her

4

30 THE GLORY OF THE TRENCHES

man was killed out here. Now she's ivory-
white with over-service and spends all her days
in loving. Her eyes have the old frank, innocent
look, but they're ringed with being weary. Only
her lips hold a touch of colour; they have a child-
ish trick of trembling when any one's wound is
hurting too much. Slie's the first touch of home
that_ the stretcher-cases'^see^wBgn _they'ye~'said
fe^^^iiddb3il^_to_A£_y;enches. She moves down the
ward ; eyes follow her. When she is absent,
though others take her place, she leaves a lone-
liness. If she meant much to men in days gone
by, to-day she means more than ever. Over
many dying boys she stoops as the incarnation
of the woman whom, had they lived, they would
have loved. To all_Qf_iis^-.Jadth~4he-43lasphemy
of destroying still upon us, she stands for the
j'- dmnitv of womanhood. — — ^

What sights she sees and what words she
hears; yet the pity she brings to her work pre-
serves her sweetness. In the silence of the night
those who are delirious re-fight their recent bat-
tles. You're half -asleep, when in the darkened
ward some one jumps up in bed, shouting, " Hold
your bloody hands up." He thinks he's captur-
ing a Hun trench, taking prisoners in a bombed
in dug-out. In an instant, like a_mother__with a
frightened child, Ihe's bending over him;_soon

THE GLORY OF THE TRENCHES 31

she hao coa:cod h'\3 head kuLk uu tlie pilluw: — ?pteii j^
(\n not flit" in vnjn when they evoke such women.

And the men — the chaps in the cots ! As a
patient the first sight you have of them is a muddy
stretcher. The care with which the bearers ad-
vance is only equalled by the waiters in old-
established London Clubs when they bring in one
of their choicest wines. The thing on the
stretcher looks horribly like some af the forever
silent people you have seen in No ]\Ian's Land.
A pair of boots you see, a British Warm flung
across the body and an arm dragging. A screen
is put round a bed ; the next sight you have of him
is a weary face lying on a white pillow. Soon
the chap in the bed next to him is questioning.

"What's yours?"

** Machine-gun caught me in both legs."

" Going to lose 'em? "

" Don't know. Can't feel much at present.
Hope not."

Then the questioner raises himself on his el-
bow. " How's it going?"

It is the attack. The conversation that fol-
lows is always how we're hanging on to such
and such an objective and have pushed forward
three hundred yards here or have been bent back
there. One thing you notice : every man forgets
hi^ow^n catastrophe irTTiTs keenness tor the suc/^^

22 THE GLORY OF THE TRENCHES

cess_ollll£_Q£Een5ive. N^er in all my fortnight's
journey to Blighty did I Jiear^ajvprd of self-pity

.or complaining. On the contrary, the most

se.uer£ly,.,\\XLiind£d-xtiea would pr£ii£.aa-lli£mselves
g;f ateful.lliaL_they-.-liad-gQtjit. so_lightly , Since
the war started the term " lightly " has become
exceedingly comparative. I suppose a man is
justified in saying he's got off lightly when what
he expected was death.

I remember a big Highland officer who had
been shot in the knee-cap. He had been oper-
ated on and the knee-cap had been found to be so
splintered that it had had to be removed; of this
he was unaware. For the first day as he lay in
bed he kept wondering aloud how long it would
be before he could re-join his battalion. Per-
haps he suspected his condition and was trying
to find out. All his heart seemed set on once
again getting into the fighting. Next morning
he plucked up courage to ask the doctor, and
received the answer he had dreaded.

" Never. You won't be going back, old chap. "

Next time he spoke his voice was a bit throaty.
"Will it stiffen?"

" You've lost the knee-joint," the doctor said,

ti

but with luck we'll save the leg."

His voice sank to a whisper. " H you do, it
won't be much good, will it ? "

THE GLORY OF THE TRENCHES ^^

" Not much."

He lay for a couple of hours silent, re-
adjusting his mind to meet the new conditions.
Then he commenced talking with cheerfulness
about returning to his family. The habit of
courage hacLx-Onnnerrd ^::rlli£,.habi_t of courage -^
vdiich grows out of the knowledge that you let
your pals down by showing cowardice.

The next step on the road to Blighty is from
the Casualty Station to a Base Hospital in France.
You go on a hospital train and are only allowed
to go when you are safe to travel. There is
always great excitement as to when this event
Avill happen; its precise date usually depends on
what's going on up front and the number of fresh
casualties which are expected. One morning you
awake to find that a tag has been prepared, con-
taining the entire medical history of your injury.
The stretcher-bearers come in with grins on their
faces, your tag is tied to the top button of your
pyjamas, jocular appointments are made by the
fellows you leave behind — many of whom you
know are dying — to meet you in London, and
you are carried out. The train is thoroughly
equipped with doctors and nurses ; the lying cases
travel in little white bunks. No one who has
not seen it can have any idea of the high good
spirits which prevail. You're going off to

34 THE GLORY OF THE TRENCHES

Blighty, to Piccadilly, to dry boots and clean
beds. The revolving wheels underneath you
seem to sing the words, " Off to Blighty — to
Blighty." It begins to dawn on you what it will
be like to be again your own master and to sleep
as long as you like.

Kindjiess again — always kindness! The sis-
ters on the train can't do enough ; they seemTto
j^ beJx^dng to exceed the self-sacrifice of Fhe sisters
3^on have, jeft behind. You twist yourselT so that
you can get a glimpse of the flying country. It's
green, undisturbed, unmarred by shells — there
are even cows!

At the Base Hospital to which I went there
was a man who performed miracles. He was a
naturalised American citizen, but an Armenian
by birth. He gave people new faces.

The first morning an officer came in to visit a
friend; his face was entirely swathed in band-
ages, with gaps left for his breathing and his eyes.
He had been like that for two years, and looked
like a leper. When he spoke he made hollow
noises. His nose and lower jaw had been torn
away by an exploding shell. Little by little, with
infinite skill, by the grafting of bone and flesh,
his face was being built up. Could any surgery
be more merciful?

In the davs that followed I saw several of these

THE GLORY OF THE TRENCHES 35

masked men. The worst cases were not allowed
to walk about. The ones I saw were invariably
dressed with the most scrupulous care in the
smartest uniforms, Sam Browns polished and
buttons shining. They had hope, and took a
pride in themselves — a splendid sign ! Perhaps
you ask why the face-cases should be kept in
France. I was not told, but I can guess — be-
cause they dread going back to England to their
girls until they've got rid of their disfigurements.
So for two years through their bandages they
watch the train pull out for Blighty, while the
damage which was done them in the fragment
of a second is repaired.

At a Base Hospital vou see something which
you don't see at a Casualty Station — sisters,
mothers, sweethearts and wives sitting~Beside the

beds. They're all^^,y^f] tn rnmo nvpv frniiT EPg-

laijd when their man is dying. One of the won-
der^l things to me was to observe how these
Vc£men in the hour of their tragedy catch tlie^
soldier spirit. They're very r|uiet. very cheerful, ^
ve^nTelpiul. Wjth pn'^ing thrnngh Thf^wnrd
thgy4ict to know some of the other patients and
rcmginber them when they bring thcTr own man

-flowers. Somotimf^ when thoir nwn__mnn is

asleep, they slip over to other bedsides and do
something kind for the solitary fellows. That's

^

36 THE GLORY OF THE TRENCHES

the army all over; military discipline is based on
unselfishness. Thesej2mm£n_MzliD.haYe_been sent
for t_o_see their men die, catch_frpm them the
spirit of undistresseH sacrifice and enrol them-
selves as soldiers.

NexFto my 'bed there was a Colonel of a north
country regiment, a gallant gentleman who posi-
tively refused to die. His wife had been with
him for two weeks, a little toy woman with nerves
worn to a frazzle, who masked her terror with
a brave, set smile. The Colonel had had his leg
smashed by a whizz-bang when leading his troops
into action. Septic poisoning had set in and the
leg had been amputated. It had been found nec-
essary to operate several times owing to the
poison spreading, with the result that, being far
from a young man, his strength was exhausted.
Men forgot their own wounds in watching this
one man's fight for life. He became symbolic
of what, in varying degrees, we were all doing.
When he was passing through a crisis the whole
ward waited breathless. There was the finest
kind of rivalry between the night and day sisters
to hand him over at the end of each twelve hours
with his pulse stronger and temperature lower
than when they received him. Each was sure
she had the secret of keeping him alive.

You discovered the spirit of the man when

THE GLORY OF THE TRENCHES '37

you heard him wandering in deHrium. All night
in the shadowy ward with its hooded lamps, he
would be giving orders for the comfort of his
men. Sometimes he'd be proposing to go for-
ward himself to a place where a company was
having a hot time; apparently one of his officers
was trying to dissuade him. " Danger be
damned," he'd exclaim in a wonderfully strong
voice. *' It'll buck 'em up to see me. Splendid
chaps — splendid chaps ! "

About dawn he was usually supposed to be
sinking, but he'd rallied again by the time the
day-sister arrived. ** Still here," he'd smile in
a triumphant kind of whisper, as though bluffing
death was a pastime.

One afternoon a padre came to visit him. 'As
he was leaving he bent above the pillow. We
learnt afterwards that this was what he had
said, " li the good Lord lets you, I hope you'll
get better."

We saw the Colonel raise himself up on his
elbow. His weak voice shook with anger.
** Neither God nor the Devil has anything to do
with it. I'm going to get well." Then, as the
nurse came hurrying to him, he sank back.

When I left the Base Hospital for Blighty he
was still holding his own. I have never heard
what happened to him, but should not be at all

38 THE GLORY OF THE TRENCHES

surprised to meet him one day in the trenches
with a wooden leg, still leading his splendid
chaps. Death can't kill men of such heroic
courage.

At the Base Hospital they talk a good deal
of " the Blighty Smile." It's supposed to be the
kind of look a chap wears when he's been told
that within twenty-four hours he'll be in Eng-
land. When this information has been imparted
to him, he's served out with warm socks, woollen
cap and a little linen bag into which to put his
valuables. Hours and hours before there's any
chance of starting you'll see the lucky ones lying
very still, with a happy vacant look in their eyes
and their absurd woollen caps stuck ready on
their heads. Sometime, perhaps in the small
hours of the morning, the stretcher-bearers, ar-
rive— the stretcher-bearers who all down the
lines of communication are forever carrying
others towards blessedness and never going them-
selves. " At last," you whisper to yourself.
You feel a glorious anticipation that you have
not known since childhood when, after three
hundred and sixty-four days of waiting, it was
truly going to be Christmas.

On the train and on the passage there is the
same skilful attention — the same ungrudging
kindness. You see new faces in the bunks beside

THE GLORY OF THE TRENCHES 39

you. After the tedium of the narrow confines
of a ward that in itself is exciting. You fall
into talk.

"What's vours?"

" Kothino; much — just a hand off and a splin-
ter or two in the shoulder. ' ' ■

You laugh. " That's not so dusty. How
much did you expect for your money?"

Probably you meet some one from the part of
the line where you were wounded — with luck
even from your own brigade, battery or battal-
ion. Then the talk becomes all about how things
are going, whether we're still holding on to our
objectives, who's got a blighty and who's gone
west. Qne discussion you don't often hear —
as to when the war will end. Ta-thi:ise_dxi]lansv^ .
in k-hnki if seems that the war has alwavs been ^
and t^-^nt they will never rpn<;p to be soldiers.
For them both past and future are utterly ob-
literated. They would not have it otherwise.
Because they are doing their duty they are con-
tented. The only time the subject is ever touched
on is when some one expresses the hope that it'll
last long enough for him to recover from his
wounds and get back into the line. That usually
starts another man, who will never be any more
good for the trenches, wondering whether he can
get into the flying corps. The one ultimate hope

40 THE GLORY OF THE TRENCHES

of all these shattered wrecks who are being hur-
ried J£Q"lllF'Bligh|y]TKey]^^^
they.,,maj; again see, service.

The tang of salt in the air, the beat of waves
and then, incredible even when it has been real-
ised, England. I think they ought to make the
hospital trains which run to London all of glass,
then instead of watching little triangles of flying
country by leaning uncomfortably far out of their
bunks, the wounded would be able to drink their
full of the greenness which they have longed for
so many months. The trees aren't charred and
blackened stumps; they're harps between the
knees of the hills, played on by the wind and-
sun. The villages have their roofs on and chil-
dren romping in their streets. The church spires
haven't been knocked down ; they stand up tall
and stately. The roadsides aren't littered w^ith
empty shell-cases and dead horses. The fields
are absolutely fields, with green crops, all wavy,
like hair growing. After the tonsured filth
we've been accustomed to call a world, all this
strikes one as unnatural and extraordinary.
There's a sweet fragrance over everything and
one's throat feels lumpy. Perhaps it isn't good
for people's health to have lumpy throats, and
that's why they don't run glass trains to London.

Then, after such excited waiting, you feel that

THE GLORY OF THE TRENCHES 41

the engine is slowing down. There's a hollow
rumbling; you're crossing the dear old wrinkled
Thames. If you looked out you'd see the dome
of St. Paul's like a bubble on the sky-line and
smoking chimneys sticking up like thumbs —
things quite ugly and things of surpassing beauty,
all of which you have never hoped to see again
and which in dreams you have loved. But if
you could look out, you wouldn't have the time.
You're getting your things together, so you won't
waste a moment when they come to carry you
out. Very probably you're secreting a souvenir
or two about your person : something you've
smuggled down from the front which will really
prove to your people that you've made the ac-
quaintance of the Hun. As though your wounds
didn't prove that sufficiently. Men are childish.

The engine comes to a halt. You can smell
the cab-stands. You're really there. An officer
comes through the train enquiring whedier you
have any preference as to hospitals. Your girl
lives in Liverpool or Glasgow or Birmingham.
Good heavens, the fellow holds your destiny in
his hands! He can send you to Whitechapel if
he likes. So, even though he has the same rank
as yourself, you address him as, "Sir."

Perhaps it's because Pve practised this di-
plomacy — I don't know. Anyway, he's granted

42 THE GLORY OF THE TRENCHES

my request, rm to stay in London. I was par-
ticularly anxious to stay in London, because one
of my young brothers from the Navy is there on
leave at present. In fact he w^ired me to France
that the Admiralty had allovv^ed him a three-days'
special extension of leave in order that he might
see me. It was on the strength of this message
that the doctors at the Base Hospital permitted
me to take the journey several days before I was
really in a condition to travel.

I'm wondering whether he's gained admission
to the platform. I lie there in my bunk all eyes,
expecting any minute to see him enter. Time
and again I mistake the blue serge uniform of
the St. John's Ambulance for that of a naval
lieutenant. They come to carry me out. What
an extraordinarily funny way to enter London —
on a stretcher ! I've arrived on boat-trains from
America, troop trains from Canada, and come
back from romantic romps in Italy, but never
in my wildest imaginings did I picture myself
arriving as a wounded soldier on a Red Cross
train.

Still clutching my absurd linen bag, which
contains my valuables, I lift my head from the
pillow gazing round for any glimpse of that
much-desired brother. Now they've popped me
onto the upper-shelf of a waiting ambulance; I

THE GLORY OF THE TRENCHES 43

can see nothing except what lies out at the back.
I at once start explaining to the nurse who ac-
companies us that I've lost a very valuable
brother — that he's probably looking for me
somewhere on the station. She's extremely
sympathetic and asks the chauffeur to drive very
slowly so that we may watch for him as we go
through the station gates into the Strand.

We're delayed for some minutes while par-
ticulars are checked up of our injuries and des-
tinations. The lying cases are placed four in
an ambulance, with the flap raised at the back
so we can see out. The sitting cases travel in
automobiles, buses and various kinds of vehicles.
In my ambulance there are two leg-cases with
most theatrical bandages, and one case of trench-
fever. We're immensely merry — all except the
trench-fever case w'ho has conceived an immense
sorrow for himself. We get impatient with
waiting. There's an awful lot of cheering going
on somewhere; we suppose troops are marching
and can't make it out.

Ah, we've started! At a slow crawl to pre-
vent jarring we pass through the gates. We dis-
cover the meaning of the cheering. On either
side the people are lined in dense crowds, waving
and shouting. It's Saturday evening when they
should be in the country. It's jolly decent of

44 THE GLORY OF THE TRENCHES

them to come here to give us such a welcome.
Flower-girls are here with their baskets full of
flowers — just poor girls with a living to earn.
They run after us as we pass and strew us with
roses. Roses ! We stretch out our hands, press-
ing them to our lips. How long is it since we
held roses in our hands? How did these girls
of the London streets know that above all things
we longed for flowers? It was worth it all, the
mud and stench and beastliness, when it was to
this that the road led back. And the girls —
they're even better than the flowers; so many
pretty faces made kind by compassion. Some*
where inside ourselves we're laughing; we're so
happy. We don't need any one's pity; time
enough for that when we start to pity ourselves.
We feel mean, as though we were part of a big
deception. We aren't half so ill as we look; if
you put sufficient bandages on a wound you can
make the healthiest man appear tragic. We're
laughing — and then all of a sudden we're cry-
ing. We press our faces against the pillow
ashamed of ourselves. We won't see the
crowds; we're angry with them for having un-
manned us. And then we can't help looking;
their love reaches us almost as though it were
the touch of hands. We won't hide ourselves

THE GLORY OF THE TRENCHES 45

if we mean so much to them. We're not angry
any more, but grateful.

Suddenly the ambulance-nurse shouts to the
driver. The ambulance stops. She's quite ex-
cited. Clutching me with one hand, she points
with the other, " There he is."

•*Who?"

I raise myself. A naval lieutenant Is standing
against the pavement, gazing anxiously at the
passing traffic.

"Your brother, isn't it?"

I shook my head. " Not half handsome
enough."

For the rest of the journey she's convinced I
have a headache. It's no good telling her that
I haven't; much to my annoyance and amuse-
ment she swabs my forehead with eau-de-
Cologne, telling me that I shall soon feel better.

The streets through which we pass are on the
south side of the Thames. It's Saturday even-
ing. Hawkers' barrows line the kerb; women
with draggled skirts and once gay hats are doing
their Sunday shopping. We're having a kind
of triumphant procession ; with these people to
feel is to express. We catch some of their re-
marks : " 'OO ! Look at 'is poor leg ! " " My,
but ain't 'e done in shockin' ! "

46 THE GLORY OF THE TRENCHES

Dear old London — so kind, so brave, so
frankly human! You're just like the chaps at
the Front — you laugh when you suffer and give
when you're starving; you never know when not
to be generous. You wear your heart in your
eyes and your lips are always ready for kissing.
I think of you as one of your ow^n flower-girls —
hoarse of voice, slatternly as to corsets, with a
big tumbled fringe over your forehead, and a
heart so big that you can chuck away your roses
to a wounded Tommy and go away yourself with
an empty basket to sleep under an archway. Do
you wonder that to us you spell Blighty? We
love you.

We come to a neighbourhood more respect-
able and less demonstrative, skirt a common, are
stopped at a porter's lodge and turn into a park-
land. The glow of sunset is ended; the blue-
grey of twilight is settling down. Between
flowered borders we pick our way, pause here
and there for directions and at last halt. Again
the stretcher-bearers! As I am carried in I
catch a glimpse of a low bungalow-building, with
others like it dotted about beneath trees. There
are red shaded lamps. Every one tiptoes in
silence. Only the lips move when people speak;
there is scarcely any sound. As the stretchers
are borne down the ward men shift their heads

THE GLORY OF THE TRENCHES 47

to gaze after them. It's past ten o'clock and
patients are supposed to be sleeping now. I'm
put to bed. There's no news of my brother ; he
hasn't 'plioned and hasn't called. I persuade one
of the orderlies to ring up the hotel at which I
know he was staying. The man is a long while
gone. Through the dim length of the ward I
watch the door into the garden, momentarily ex-
pecting the familiar figure in the blue uniform
and gold buttons to enter. He doesn't. Then
at length the orderly returns to tell me that the
naval lieutenant who was staying at the hotel,
had to set out for his ship that evening, as there
was no train that he could catch on Sunday. So
he was steaming out of London for the North
at the moment I was entering. Disappointed?
Yes. One shrugs his shoulders. C'cst la guerre,
as we say in the trenches. You can't have every-
thing when Europe's at war.

I can hardly keep awake long enough for the
sister to dress my arm. The roses that the
flower-girls had thrown mc are in water and
within handstretch. They seem almost persons
and curiously sacred — symbols of all the hero-
ism and kindness that has ministered to me every
step of the journey. It's a good little war I
think to myself. Then, with the green smell of
England in my nostrils and the rumbling of Lon-

48 THE GLORY OF THE TRENCHES

don in my ears, like conversation below stairs,
I drowse off into the utter contentment of the
first deep sleep I have had since I was wounded.

I am roused all too soon by some one sticking
a thermometer into my mouth. Rubbing my
eyes, I consult my watch. Half-past five!
Rather early! Raising myself stealthily, I catch
a glimpse of a neat little sister darting down the
ward from bed to bed, tent-pegging every sleep-
ing face with a fresh thermometer. Having
made the round, back she comes to take posses-
sion of my hand while she counts my pulse. I
try to spealc, but she won't let me remove the
accursed thermometer; when she has removed it
herself, off she goes to the next bed. I notice
that she has auburn hair, merry blue eyes and a
ripping Irish accent. I learn later that she's a
Sinn Feiner, a sworn enemy to England who
sings " Dark Rosaleen " and other rebel songs
in the secret watches of the night. It seems to
me that in taking care of England's wounded
she's solving the Irish problem pretty well.

Heavens, she's back again, this time with a
bowl of water and a towel! Very severely and
thoroughly, as though I were a dirty urchin, she
scrubs my face and hands. She even brushes
my hair. I watch her do the same for other

THE GLORY OF THE TRENCHES 49

patients, some of whom are Colonels and old
enough to be her father. She's evidently in no
mood for proposals of marriage at this early
hour, for her technique is impartially severe to
everybody, though her blue eyes are unfailingly
laughing.

It is at this point that somebody crawls out of
bed, slips into a dressing-gown, passes through
the swing door at the end of the ward and sets
the bath-water running. The sound of it lis

'to
ecstatic.

Very .soon nther.'; follow hi=: ^v^ample. They're
rliipt; vithont Ip'-yn, rrith nn arm gnj-i^, a hand
gnnp^ hnrk- AA-nnnd'^, qtntiinrh ivnnnrk Vinlpq in t]-\p
bead. They stnrf rhnffing one nnntlier. Thprp'.^n
no. hint of tr.ipedy. A gale of laughter sweeps
the ward from end to end. An Anzac captain
is called on for a speech. I discover that he is
our professional comic man and is called on to
make speeches twenty times a day. They always

start with. "Gentlemen, I will say this "

and end with a flourish in praise of Australia.
Soon the ward is made perilous by wheel-chairs,
in whfch unriliilfiil pilots steer thcmi£lyes ouTinto
the--grern adventure of the garden. Birds are
singing out there; the guns had done for the birds
in the places where we came from. Through

50 THE GLORY OF THE TRENCHES

open doors we can see the glow of flowers, dew-
laden and sparkling, lazily unfolding their petals
in the early sun.

When the sister's back Is turned, a one-legged
officer nips out of bed and hops like a crow to
the gramophone. The song that follows is a
favourite. Curious that it should be, for it
paints a dream which to many of these mutilated
men — Canadians, Australians, South Africans,
Imperials — will have to remain only a dream, so
long as life lasts. Girls don't marry fellows
without arms and legs — at least they didn't in
peace days before the world became heroic. As
the gramophone commences to sing, heads on
pillows hum the air and fingers tap in time on the
sheets. It's a peculiarly childish song for men
who have seen what they have seen and done
what they have done, to be so fond of. Here's
the way it runs: —

" We'll have a little cottage in a little town
And we'll have a little mistress in a dainty gown,
A little doggie, a little cat,
A little doorstep with welcome on the mat ;
And we'll have a little trouble and a little strife,
But none of these things matter when you've got a little

wife.
We shall be as happy as the angels up above
With a little patience and a lot of love."

THE GLORY OF THE TRENCHES 51

A little patience and a lot of love! I suppose
that's Jhe line that's caught the chaps^ Behind^

all vthpir ^mili^^g and tlipir hnyi^ji g-aJetV tlieV

know that they'll need both patience and love to
meet the balance of existence with sweetness and

sobjierly coura.ge. 1 1_ won't be so easy to be

soldiers when they get back into mufti and go

.out into the world ^rip^^lpg Here in their pyja-

maQn the summer sun, they're making a first

class effort T takp nnnflipr look at tbprp No,
therp'll never 1^e nny ubini^ig f|-nin gipn such aS

lthes£^_— ^

Som£ of us will soon be back in the fighting —
and^jolly glad of it. Others are doome'd to f6-

main in the trenches for the re'^t nf thf^jr Hvp'^
— not.^ie trenches of the front-line where
they've been strafed by the Hun, but the trenches
o ^physical curtailment where self-pity will launch

wavenftpr wnvp nf nn.nrl- nnrm'ngt tbpm It won't

be easy not to get the " wind up." It'll be diffi-
cult to maintain normal cheerfulness. But
they're not the men they were before they went
to war — out there they've learnt something.
They're game. They'll remain soldiers, what-
ever happens.

^

THE LADS AWAY

All the lads have gone out to play
At being soldiers, far away;
They won't be back for many a day.
And some won't be back any morning.

All the lassies who laughing were
When hearts were light and lads were here.
Go sad-eyed, wandering hither and there ■ —
They pray and they watch for the morning.

Every house has its vacant bed
And every night, when sounds are dead.
Some woman yearns for the pillowed head
Of him who marched out in the morning.

Of all the lads who've gone out to play
There's some'll return and some who'll stay;
There's some zvill be back 'most any day —
But some won't wake up in the morning.

II

THE GROWING OF THE VISION

I'm continuing in America the book which I
thought out during the golden July and August
days when I lay in the hospital in London. I've
been here a fortnight ; ever}lhing that's happened
seems unbelievably wonderful, as though it had
happened to some one other than myself. It'll
seem still more wonderful in a few weeks' time
when I'm where I hope I shall be — back in the
mud at the Front.

Here's how this miraculous turn of events oc-
curred. When I went before my medical board
I was declared unfit for active service for at least
two months. A few da)'S later I went in to
General Headquarters to see what were the
chances of a trip to New York. The officer
whom I consulted pulled out his watch, " It's
noon now. There's a boat-train leaving Euston
in two and a half hours. Do you think you can
pack up and make it? "

Did I think!

"You watch me," I cried.

53

54 THE GLORY OF THE TRENCHES

Dashing out into Regent Street I rounded up
a taxi and raced about London like one pos-
sessed, collecting kit, visiting tailors, withdrawing
money, telephoning friends with whom I had din-
ner and theatre engagements. It's an extraor-
dinary characteristic of the Army, but however
hurried an officer may be, he can always spare
time to visit his tailor. The fare I paid my taxi-
driver was too monstrous for words; but then
he'd missed his lunch, and one has to miss so
many things in war-times that when a new straw
of inconvenience is piled on the camel, the camel
expects to be compensated. Anyway, I was on
that boat-train when it pulled out of London.

I was in uniform when I arrived in New York,
for I didn't possess any mufti. You can't guess
what a difference that made to one's home-
coming— not the being in uniform, but the
knowing that it wasn't an offence to wear it.
On my last leave, some time ago before I went
overseas, if I'd tried to cross the border from
Canada in uniform I'd have been turned back;
if by any chance I'd got across and worn regi-
mentals I'd have been arrested by the first Irish
policeman. A place isn't home where you get
turned back or locked up for wearing the things
of which you're proudest. If America hadn't
come into the war none of us who have loved

THE GLORY OF THE TRENCHES 55

her and since been to the trenches, would ever
have wanted to return.

But she's home now as she never was before
and never could have been under any other cir-
cumstances — now that khaki strides unabashed
down Broadway and the skirl of the pipers has
been heard on Fifth Avenue. We men " over
there "' will have to find a new name for
America. It won't be exactly Blighty, but a kind
of ver}' wealthy first cousin to Blighty — a word
meaning something generous and affectionate
and steam-heated, waiting for us on the other
side of the Atlantic.

Two weeks here already — two weeks more to
go; then back to the glory of the trenches!

Tl^ere's one person I've missed since my re-
tijrn-to Xew York. I've caught glimps"e"s of him^
disaiff)earing around corners, but he dodges,
think he's a bit ashamed to meet me. That per-
son is my old civilian self. \\'hni- n fi]11-])1n\vn
egoist he used to be ! T^j2:[ll-f"^^ ^'^ gnlrlpn pinnq
for his own advancement] How terrified of j|^
failure, of disease, of nmnoy ^o^sp«^, pf (]onih — /
of — all — y+e — temporary, — external. — non-essential ■
things that have nothing to do with the .^pirit !
War is in itself damnable — a profligate misuse
of the accumulated brain-stuff of centuries.
Nevertheless, there's many a man who has no

56 THE GLORY OF THE TRENCHES

love of war, who previous to the war had
cramped his soul with Httleness and was chased
by the ba3'onet of duty into the blood-stained
largeness of the trenches, who has learnt to say,
" ThankJiod-iiiar lhis-warZL_^e,_^
beoaiise ^f _tlT^_canTage^ J)ut ^because when the
wine-pr^s^-oi-new id£als_was_bging trodden, "he
wasJxn:n-.in. an^^ge--whea-h£L£ould^ do Jhi s share.

America's going through just about the same
experience as myself. She's teeliii^ bruader^in
tbp che<=^f, biggpr in the heart and her"eyes are
clearer^ _ When she catches sight of the~America
that she was, she's filled with doubt — she can't
believe that that person with the Stars and Stripes
wrapped round her and a money-bag in either
hand ever was herself. Home, clean and hon-
ourable for every man who ever loved her and
has pledged his life for an ideal with the Allies
— that's what she's become now.

I read again the words that I wrote about those
thaps in the London hospital, men who had
journeyed to their Calvary glad-hearted from
the farthest corners of the world. From this
distance I see them in truer perspective than
when we lay companions side by side in that long
line of neat, white cots. I used to grope after
ways to explain them — to explain the courage
which in their utter heroism they did not realise

THE GLORY OF THE TRENCHES 57

they possessed. They had grown so accustomed
to a brave way of living that they sincerely be-
lieved they were quite ordinary persons. That's
courage at its finest — when it becomes uncon-
scious and instinctive.

At first I said, " I know why they're so cheer-
ful — it's because they're all here in one ward
together. They're all mutilated more or less, so
they don't feel that they're exceptional. It's as
though the whole \vorld woke up with toothache
one morning. At breakfast every one would be
feeling very sorry for himself; by lunch-time,
when it had become common knowledge that the
entire world had the same kind of ache, tooth-
ache would have ceased to exist. It's the lone-
liness of being abnormal in your suffering that
hurts."

But it wasn't that. Even while I was con-
fined to the hospital, in hourly contact with the
chaps, I felt that it wasn't that. When I was
allowed to dress and go down West for a few
hours everyday, I knew that I was wrong most
certainly. In Piccadilly, Hyde Park, theatres,
restaurants, river-places on the Thames you'd
see them, these men who were maimed for life,
climbing up and down buses, hobbling on their
crutches independently through crowds, hailing
one another cheerily from taxis, drinking life

'58 THE GLORY OF THE TRENCHES

joyously in big gulps without complaint or sense
of martyrdom, and getting none of the dregs.
A part of their secret was that through their
experience in the trenches they had learnt to be
self-forgetful. The only time I ever saw a
wounded man lose his temper was when some one
out of kindness made him remember himself.
A sudden down-pour of rain had commenced; it
was towards evening and all the employees of the
West End shopping centre were making haste
to get home to the suburbs. A young Highland
officer who had lost a leg scrambled into a bus
going to Wandsworth. The inside of the bus
was jammed, so he had to stand up clutching on
to a strap. A middle-aged gentleman rose from
his seat and offered it to the Highlander. The
Highlander smiled his thanks and shook his head.
The middle-aged gentleman in his sympathy be-
came pressing, attracting attention to the officer's
infirmity. It was then that the officer lost his
temper, I saw him flush.

" I don't want it," he said sharply. " There's
nothing the matter with me. Thanks all the
same. I'll stand."

This habit of being self-forgetful gives one
time to be remindful of others. Last January,
during a brief and glorious ten days' leave, I
went to a matinee at the Coliseum. Vesta Tilley

THE GLORY OF THE TRENCHES 59

was doing an extraordinarily funny impersona-
tion of a Tommy just home from the comfort of
the trenches ; her sketch depicted the terrible dis-
comforts of a fighting man on leave in Blighty.
If I remember rightly the refrain of her song
ran somewhat in this fashion:

" Next lime ihcy want to give me six days' leave
Let 'em make it six months' 'ard."

There were two officers, a major and a cap-
tain, behind us ; judging by the soimds they made,
they were getting their full money's worth of
enjoyment. In the interval, when the lights
went up, I turned and saw the captain putting a
cigarette between the major's lips; then, having
gripped a match-box between his knees so that
he might strike the match, he lit the cigarette for
his friend very awkwardly. I looked closer and
discovered that the laughing captain had only one
hand and the equally happy major had none at
all.

Men forget their own infirmities in their en-
deavour to help each other. Before the war we
had a phrase which has taken on a new meaning
now-L_\vc used to talk about "lending a hand."
To-dav we lend not only hands, but arms an
eves anrl Icps. The ^uondcrful comradeship
learnt in liic trenches has taught men to lend their

¥

y

60 THE GLORY OF THE TRENCHES

bodi£sJo_^each other — out of two maimed bodies
to make up one wlilcffjis wRole, and_sound, and
shaLte4^ Vnii^aw flits all tjip time in lin.^pital.^
A man who had only one leg would pal up with,
a man who had only one arm. The one-armed
man would wheel the one-legged man about the
garden in a chair; at meal-times the one-legged
man would cut up the one-armed man's food for
him. They had both lost something, but by
pooling Adiat-was lefj_th£v_mana£ed to"~owtra"
complete ..body. By; the time the war is ended
there'll, be great hosts of helpless men wtKrby
combining ^vill have learnt how to become help-
ful. Thc}^'!! eslablisli~a-ii.ew--standard of very
simple and cheerful socialism.

Th^reV-ar--poiftt-L_wan^ to make clear before
I forgetjt. All.^es_e_men, whether they^re cap-
turing Hun dug-outs at the Front or taking pris-
oner their own despair in English hospitals, are
perfectly jordinarx and normal. Before the war
thev were phop-assistants. cal>drivers^ plumbers,
lawyers,_vaudeville artists. T.h£y— were .men -of
nnchernir training Their civilian callings and
their previous social status were too various for
any one to suppose that they were heroes ready-
made at birth. Something hasjiappened to them
since they marched away in khaki — ^satnHEiEg"
4hat iias changed them. They're as completely

THE GLORY OF THE TRENCHES 6i

re-made as St. Paul was after he had had his
vision of the opening heavens on the road to
Damascus. They've brought their vision back
with thpni to civilian Hfe. despite the lost arms
and ler;-s which they scarcely seem to regret;
their^soulsstill triumph over the body and the
temporal As Jhey hobble through the streets
of^ondon, they display the same gay courage
that was theirs when at zero hour, with a fifty-
fift^'^iance of death, they hopped over the top
for the attack.

Often at the Front I have thought of Christ's
explanation of his own unassailable peace — an
explanation given to his disciples at the Last
Supper, immediately before the walk to Gethsem-
ane: "Be of good cheer, I have overcome the
■world." Overcoming the world, as I understand
it, is overcoming self. Fear, in its final analy-
sis, is nothing but selfishness. A man who is
afraid in an attack, isn't thinking of his pals and
how quickly terror spreads; he isn't thinking of
the glory which will accrue to his regiment or
division if the attack is a success; he isn't think-
ing of what he can do to contribute to that suc-
cess; he isn't thinking of the splendour of forcing
his spirit to triumph over weariness and nerves
and the abominations that the Huns are chucking
at him. He's thinking merely of how he can

62 THE GLORY OF THE TRENCHES

save his worthless skin and conduct his entirely
unimportant body to a place where there aren't
any shells.

In London as I saw the work-a-day, uncon-
scious nobility of the maimed and wounded, the
words, " I have overcome the world," took an
added depth. All these men have an " I-have-
overcome-the-world " look in their faces. It's
comparatively easy for a soldier with traditions
and ideals at his back to face death calmly; to
be calm in the face of life, as these chaps are,
takes a graver courage.

What' has happened to change them? These
disabilrdes, had theyhappened before the war,
would have rrnc;hed and emhittergThptn They
would have been woes utterly and inconsolably
unbearable. Intrinsically their physical disable-
ments spell the same loss to-day that they would
have in 19 12. The*^titude of mind in which
thev;,^are accepted alone makes themseem less.
This attitude of mind or greatness of soul —
j/^ "^ whatever you like to call it — -""vva^ lt:!aiiiL in- the
///f^ -^ trenches where everything outward is polluted;
{ ' J/ and_daninabl€. Thejr experience at the Front has
V-^.^^^ giv^en them what in the Army language is known
as "g^its." " GiTfs " nr__courage is an attitude
of_mind towards calamity — an attitude of mind
which makes the honourable accomplishing of

■f

THE GLORY OF THE TRENCHES 63

dnfy more ppminnently — satisfying th nn tKo

prfe:i£ryation of self. But how did this vision
come to these men? How did they rid them-
selves of their civilian flabbiness and ac([uire it?
These questions are best answered autobiograph-
ically. Here briefly, is the story of the growth of
the vision within myself.

In August, 19 14, three days after war had
been declared, I sailed from Quebec for Enir-
land on the first ship that put out from Canada.
The trip had been long planned — it was not
undertaken from any patriotic motive. ]\Iy fam-
ily, which included my father, mother, sister and
brother, had been living in America for eight
years and had never returned to England to-
gether. It was the accomplishing of a dream
long cherished, which favourable circumstances
and a sudden influx of money had at last made
possible. We had travelled three thousand miles
from our ranch in the Rockies before the war-
cloud burst; obstinacy and curiosity combined
made us go on, plus an entirely British feeling
that by crossing the Atlantic during the crisis
we'd l3e showing our contempt for the Germans.

We were only informed that the ship was
going to sail at the very last moment, and went
aboard in the evening. The word spread (juickly
among the crews uf other vessels lying in har-

64 THE GLORY OF THE TRENCHES

hour; their firemen, keen to get back to Eng-
land and have a whack at the Huns, tried to
board our ship, sometimes by a ruse, more often
by fighting. One saw some very pretty fist
work that night as he leant across the rail, won-
dering whether he'd ever reach the other side.
There were rumours of German warships wait-
ing to catch us in mid-ocean. Somewhere to-
wards midnight the would-be stowaways gave up
their attempt to force a passage; they squatted
with their backs against the sheds along the
quayside, singing patriotic songs to the accom-
paniment of mouth-organs, confidently asserting
that they were sons of the bull-dog breed and
never, never would be slaves. It was all very
amusing; war seemed to be the finest of excuses
for an outburst of high spirits.

Next morning, when we came on deck for a
breath of air the vessel was under way ; all hands
were hard at work disguising her with paint of
a sombre colour. Here and there you saw an
officer in uniform, who had not yet had time to
unpack his mufti. The next night, and for the
rest of the voyage, all port-holes were darkened
and we ran without lights. An atmosphere of
suspense became omnipresent. Rumours spread
like wild-fire of sinkings, victories, defeats,
marching and countermarchings, engagements

THE GLORY OF THE TRENCHES 65

on land and water. With the uncanny and un-
accustomed sense of danger we began to reahse
that we, as individuals, were involved in a Euro-
pean war.

As we got about among the passengers we
found that the usual spirit of comradeship which
marks an Atlantic voyage, was noticeably lack-
ing. Every person regarded every other person
with distrust, as though he might be a spy. Peo-
ple were secretive as to their calling and the
purpose of their voyage; little by little we dis-
covered that many of them were government
officials, but that most were professional soldiers
rushing back in the hope that they might be in
time to join the British E.xpeditionary Force.
Long before we had guessed that a world tragedy
was impending, they had judged war's advent
certain from its shadow, and had come from the
most distant parts of Canada that they might
be ready to embark the moment the cloud burst.
Some of them were travelling with their wives
and children. What struck me as wholly un-
reasonable was that these professional soldiers
and their families were the least disturbed people
on board. I used to watch them as one might
watch condemned prisoners in their cells. Their
apparent indifference was unintelligible to me.
'J'hcy lived their daily present, contented and un-

66 THE GLORY OF THE TRENCHES

unruffled, just as if it were going to be their
present always. I accused them of being lacking
in imagination. I saw them lying dead on
battlefields. I saw them dragging on into old
age, with the spine of life broken, mutilated and
mauled. I saw them in desperately tight corners,
fighting in ruined villages with sword and bay-
onet. But they joked, laughed, played with their
kiddies and seemed to have no realisation of the
horrors to which they were going. There was a
world-famous aviator, who had gone back on his
marriage promise that he would abandon his
aerial adventures. He was hurrying to join the
French Flying Corps. He and his young wife
used to play deck-tennis every morning as light-
heartedly as if they were travelling to Europe for
a lark. In my many accusations of these men's
indifference I never accused them of courage.
Courage, as I had thought of it up to that time,
was a grim affair of teeth set, sad eyes and
clenched hands — the kind of "My head is
bloody but unbowed " determination described
in Henley's poem.

When we had arrived safe in port we were
held up for some time. A tug came out, bring-
ing a lot of artificers who at once set to work
tearing out the fittings of the ship that she might
be converted into a transport. Here again I

THE GLORY OF THE TRENCHES (yy

witnessed a contrast between the soldierly and
the civihan attitude. The civiHans, with their
easily postponed engagements, fumed and fretted
at the delay in getting ashore. The officers took
the inconvenience with philosophical good-
humour. While the panelling and electric-light
fittings were being ripped out, they sat among the
debris and played cards. There was heaps of
time for their appointment — it was only with
wounds and Death. To me, as a civilian, their
coolness was almost irritating and totally incom-
prehensible. I found a new explanation by say-
ing that, after all, war was their professional
chance — in fact, exactly what a shortage in the
flour-market was to a man who had quantities
of wheat on hand.

That night we travelled to London, arriving
about two o'clock in the morning. There was
little to denote that a European war was on,
except that people were a trifle more animated
and cheerful. The next day was Sunday, and we
motored round Hampstcad Heath. The Heath
was as usual, gay with plcasure-scckcrs and
the streets sedate with church-goers. On Mon-
day, when we tried to transact business and ex-
change money, we found that there were hitches
and difficulties ; it was more as though a window
had been left open and a certain untidiness had

68 THE GLORY OF THE TRENCHES

resulted. " It will be all right to-morrow/*
everybody said. " Business as usual," and they
nodded.

But as the days passed it wasn't all right.
Kitchener began to call for his army. Belgium
was invaded. We began to hear about atroci-
ties. There were rumours of defeat, which
ceased to be rumours, and of grey hordes press-
ing towards Paris. It began to dawn 'on the
most optimistic of us that the little British Army
— the Old Contemptibles — hadn't gone to
France on a holiday jaunt.

The sternness of the hour was brought home
to me by one obscure incident. Straggling
across Trafalgar Square in mufti and com-
manded by a sergeant came a little procession of
recruits. They were roughly dressed men of
the nav\'y and the coster class. All save one car-
ried under his arm his worldly possessions,
wrapped in cloth, brown-paper or anything that
had come handy. The sergeant kept on giving
them the step and angrily imploring them to pick
it up. At the tail of the procession followed
a woman ; she also carried a package.

They turned into the Strand, passed by Char-
ing Cross and branched off to the right down a
lane to the Embankment. At the point where
they left the Strand, the man without a parcel

THE GLORY OF THE TRENCHES 69

spoke to the sergeant and fell out of the ranks.
He laid his clumsy hand on the woman's arm;
she set down on the pavement the parcel she had
been carrying. There they stood for a full
minute gazing at each other dumbly, oblivious to
the passing crowds. She wasn't pleasing to look
at — just a slum woman with draggled skirts, a
shawl gathered tightly round her and a mildewed
kind of bonnet. He was no more attractive — a
hulking Samson, perhaps a day-labourer, who
whilst he had loved her, had probably beaten her.
They had come to the hour of parting, and there
they stood in the London sunshine inarticulate
after life together. He glanced after the proces-
sion ; it was two hundred yards away by now.
Stooping awkwardly for the burden which she
had carried for him, in a shame-faced kind of
way he kissed her ; then broke from her to follow
his companions. She watched him forlornly,
her hands hanging empty. Never once did he
look back as he departed. Catching up, he took
his place in the ranks ; they rounded a corner and
were lost. Her eyes were quite dry; her jaw
sagged stupidly. For some seconds she stared
after the way he had gone — her man! Then
she wandered off as one who had no purpose.

Wotuidcd men commenced to appear in the
streets. You saw them in restaurants, looking

70 THE GLORY OF THE TRENCHES

happy and embarrassed, being paraded by proud
families. One day I met two in my tailor's
shop — one had an arm in a sling, the other's
head had been seared by a bullet. It was whis-
pered that they were officers who had " got it "
at Mons. A thrill ran through me — a thrill of
hero-worship.

At the Empire Music Hall in Leicester Square,
tragedy bared its broken teeth and mouthed at
me. We had reached the stage at which we had
become intensely patriotic by the singing of
songs. A beautiful actress, who had no thought
of doing *'her bit" herself, attired as Britannia,
with a colossal Union Jack for background, came
before the footlights and sang the recruiting song
of the moment,

"We don't want to lose you
But we think you ought to go."

Some one else recited a poem calculated to shame
tnen into immediate enlistment, two lines of
which I remember:

" I wasn't among the first to go
But I went, thank God, I went."

The effect of such urging was to make me
angry. I wasn't going to be rushed into khaki
on the spur of an emotion picked up in a music-

THE GLORY OF THE TRENCHES 71

hall. I pictured the comfortable gentlemen,
beyond the military age, who had written these
heroic taunts, had gained reputation by so doing,
and all the time sat at home in suburban security.
The people who recited or sung their effusions,
made me equally angry; they were making
sham-patriotism a means of livelihood and had
no intention of doing their part. All the world
that by reason of age or sex was exempt from the
ordeal of battle, was shoving behind all the rest
of the world that was not exempt, using the
younger men as a shield against his own terror
and at the same time calling them cowards.
That was how I felt. I told myself that if I
went — and the if seemed very remote — I
should go on a conviction and not because of
shoving. They could hand me as many white
feathers as they liked, I wasn't going to be swept
away by the general hysteria. Besides, where
would be the sense in joining? Everybody said
that our fellows would be home for Christmas.
Our chaps who were out there ought to know;
in writing home they promised it them.selves.

The next part of the music-hall performance
was moving pictures of the Germans' march into
Brussels. I was in the Promenade and had
noticed a Belgian soldier l)eing made much of by
a group of Tommies. He was a queer looking

'J2 THE GLORY OF THE TRENCHES

fellow, with a dazed expression and eyes that
seemed to focus on some distant horror ; his uni-
form was faded and torn — evidently it had
seen active service. I wondered by what strange
fortune he had been conveyed from the brutali-
ties of invasion to this gilded, plush-seated sensa-
tion-palace in Leicester Square.

I watched the screen. Through ghastly
photographic boulevards the spectre conquer-
ors marched. They came on endlessly, as
though somewhere out of sight a human dam
had burst, whose deluge would never be stopped.
I tried to catch the expressions of the men,
wondering whether this or that or the next had
contributed his toll of violated women and
butchered children to the list of Hun atrocities.
Suddenly the silence of the theatre was startled
by a low, infuriated growl, followed by a shriek
which was hardly human. I have since heard
the same kind of sounds when the stumps of the
mutilated are being dressed and the pain has be-
come intolerable. Everybody turned in their
seats — gazing through the dimness to a point
in the Promenade near to where I was. The
ghosts on the screen were forgotten. The faked
patriotism of the songs we had listened to had
become a thing of naught. Through the welter

THE GLORY OF THE TRENCHES -jz

of bombast, excitement and emotion we had
grounded on reality.

The Belgian soldier, in his tattered uniform,
was leaning out, as though to bridge the space
that divided him from his ghostly tonnentors.
The dazed look was gone from his expression
and his eyes were focussed in the fixity of a cruel
purpose — to kill, and kill, and kill the smoke-
grey hordes of tyrants so long as his life should
last. He shrieked imprecations at them, calling
upon God and snatching epithets from the gutter
in his furious endeavour to curse them. He was
dragged away by friends in khaki, overpowered,
struggling, smothered but still cursing.

I learnt aftervvards that he, with his mother
and two brothers, had been the proprietors of
one of the best hotels in Brussels. Both his
brothers had been called to arms and were dead.
Anything might have happened to his mother —
he had not heard from her. He himself had
escaped in the general retreat and was going back
to France as interpreter with an English regi-
ment. He had lost everything; it was the sight
of his ruined hotel, flung by chance on the screen,
that had provoked his demonstration. He was
dead to every emotion except revenge — to ac-
complish which he was returning.

74 THE GLORY OF THE TRENCHES

The moving-pictures still went on; nobody
had the heart to see more of them. The house
rose, fumbling for its coats and hats; the place
was soon empty.

Just as I was leaving a recruiting sergeant
touched my elbow, " Going to enlist, sonny? "

I shook my head. " Not to-night. Want to
think it over."

" You will," he said. " Don't wait too long.
We can make a man of you. If I get you in my
squad I'll give you hell."

I didn't doubt it.

I don't know that I'm telling these events in
their proper sequence as they led up to the grow-
ing of the vision. That doesn't matter — the
point is that the conviction was daily strengthen-
ing that I was needed out there. The thought
was grotesque that I could ever make a soldier
— I whose life from the day of leaving college
had been almost wholly sedentary. In fights at
school I could never hurt the other boy until by
pain he had stung me into madness. Moreover,
my idea of war was grimly graphic; I thought
it consisted of a choice between inserting a bay-
onet into some one else's stomach or being your-
self the recipient. I had no conception of the
long-distance, anonymous killing that marks our
modern methods, and is in many respects more

THE GLORY OF THE TRENCHES 75

truly awful. It's a fact that there are hosts of
combatants who have never once identified the
bodies of those for whose death they are per-
sonally responsible. ]\Iy ideas of fighting were
all of hand-to-hand encolinters — the kind ot

^^Ody tTchtlPu ^'''''^ rpjnirprl flip lip^rft; nt^

pirates. I considered that it took a brutal kind
of^man to do such work. For myselt i telt
certain that, though I got the uppei'-liand uf a
feli^wwho had tried to murder me, i should
never have the callousness to return the com-
phpient. I lie thoucrht ot sheddnig" blood w.as
nauseating.

It was partly to escape from this atmosphere
of tension that we left London, and set out on
a motor-trip through England. This trip had
figured largely in our original plans before there
had been any thought of war. We wanted to
re-visit the old places that had been the scenes
of our family-life and childhood. Months be-
fore sailing out of Quebec we had studied guide-
books, mapping out routes and hotels. With
about half a ton of gasolene on the roof to guard
against contingencies, we started.

Everywhere we went, from Cornwall to the
North, men were training and marching. All
the bridges and reservoirs were guarded. Every
tiniest village had its recruiting posters for

'jG THE GLORY OF THE TRENCHES

Kitchener's Army. It was a trip utterly differ-
ent from the one we had expected.

At Stratford in the tap-room of Shakespeare's
favourite tavern I met an exceptional person
■ — a man who was afraid, and had the courage
to speak the truth as millions at that time felt
it. An American was present — a vast and
fleshy man: a transatlantic version of Falstaff.
He had just escaped from Paris and was giving
us an account of how he had hired a car, had
driven as near the fighting-line as he could get
and had seen the wounded coming out. He had
risked the driver's life and expended large sums
of money merely to gratify his curiosity. He
mopped his brow and told us that he had aged
ten years — folks in Philadelphia would hardly
know him; but it was all worth it. The details
which he embroidered and dwelt upon were
ghastly. He was particularly impressed with
having seen a man with his nose off. His de-
scription held us horrified and spell-bound.

In the midst of his oratory an officer entered,
bringing with him five nervous young fellows.
They were self-conscious, excited, over-wrought
and belonged to the class of the lawyer's clerk.
The officer had evidently been working them up
to the point of enlistment, and hoped to com-
plete the job that evening over a sociable glass.

THE GLORY OF THE TRENCHES y-]

As his audience swelled, the fat man from Phila-
delphia grew exceedingly vivid. When appealed
to by the recruiting officer, he confirmed the
opinion that every Englishman of fighting age
should be in France; that's where the boys of
America would be if their country were in the
same predicament. Four out of the five in-
tended victims applauded this sentiment — they
applauded too boisterously for complete sin-
cerity, because they felt that they could do no
less. The fifth, a scholarly, pale-faced fellow,
drew attention to himself by his silence.

"You're going to join, too, aren't you?" the
recruiting officer asked.

The pale-faced man swallowed. There was
no doubt that he was scared. The American's
morbid details had been enough to frighten any-
body. He was so frightened that he had the
pluck to tell the truth.

"Fd like to," he hesitated, "but . Fve

got an imagination. I should see things as twice
as horrible. I should live through every beastli-
ness before it occurred. When it did happen, I
should turn coward. I should run away, and
you'd shoot me as a deserter. Fd like — not
yet, I can't."

He was the bravest man in the tap-room that
night. \i he's still alive, he probably wears

78 THE GLORY OF THE TRENCHES

decorations. He was afraid, just as every one
else was afraid ; but he wasn't sufficiently a
coward to lie about his terror. His voice was
the voice of millions at that hour.

A day came when England's jeopardy was
brought home to her. I don't remember the
date, but I remember it was a Sabbath. We had
pulled up before a village post office to get the
news; it was pasted behind the window against
the glass. We read, '^'Boulogne has fallen."
The news was false; but it wasn't contradicted
till next day. Meanwhile, in that quiet village,
over and above the purring of the engine, we
heard the beat of Death's wnngs across the
Channel — a gigantic vulture approaching which
would pick clean of vileness the bones of both
the actually and the spiritually dead. I knew
then for certain that it was only a matter of
time till I, too, should be out there among the
carnage, " somewhere in France." I felt like
a rabbit in the last of the standing corn, when a
field is in the harvesting. There was no escape
— I could hear the scythes of an inexorable duty
cutting closer.

After about six weeks in England, I travelled
back to New York with my family to complete
certain financial obligations and to set about the
winding up of my affairs. I said nothing to

THE GLORY OF THE TRENCHES 79

any one as to my purpose. The reason for my
silence is now obvious: I didn't want to commit
myself to other people and wished to leave my-
self a loop-hole for retracting the promises I had
made my conscience. There were times when
my heart seemed to stop beating, appalled by the
future which I was rapidly approaching. My
vivid imagination — which from childhood has
been as much a hindrance as a help — made me
foresee myself in every situation of horror —
gassed, broken, distributed over the landscape.
Luckily it made me foresee the worst horror —
the ignominy of living perhaps fifty years with
a self who was dishonoured and had sunk be-
neath his own best standards. Of course there
were also moments of exaltation when the boy-
spirit of adventure loomed large; it seemed
splendidly absurd that I was going to be a soldier,
a companion-in-arms of those lordly chaps who
had fought at Senlac, sailed with Drake and
saved the day for freedom at Mons. Whether
I was exalted or depressed, a power stronger
than myself urged me to work feverishly to the
end that, at the first opportunity, I might lay
aside my occupation, with all my civilian obliga-
tions discharged.

When that time came, my first difficulty was
in communicating my decision to my family; my

8o THE GLORY OF THE TRENCHES

second, in getting accepted in Canada. I was
perhaps more ignorant than most people about
things mihtary. I had not the slightest knowl-
edge as to the functions o£ the different arms of
the service; infantry, artillery, engineers, A. S.
C. — they all connoted just as much and as
little. I had no qualifications. I had never
handled fire-arms. My solitary useful accom-
plishment was that I could ride a horse. It
seemed to me that no man ever was less fitted
for the profession of killing. I was painfully con-
scious of self-ridicule whenever I offered myself
for the job. I offered myself several times and
in different quarters ; when at last I was granted
a commission in the Canadian Field Artillery it
was by pure good-fortune. I didn't even know
what guns were used and, if informed, shouldn't
have had the least idea what an eighteen-pounder
was. Nevertheless, within seven months I was
out in France, taking part in an offensive which,
up to that time, was the most ambitious of the
entire war.

From New York I went to Kingston in
Ontario to present myself for training; an of-
ficers' class had just started, in which I had been
ordered to enrol myself. It was the depth of
winter — an unusually hard winter even for that
part of Canada. My first glimpse of the Tete du

THE GLORY OF THE TRENCHES 8i

Pont Barracks was of a square of low buildings,
very much like the square of a Hudson Bay Fort.
The parade ground was ankle-deep in trampled
snow and mud. A bleak wind was blowing from
off the river. Squads of embryo officers were
being drilled by hoarse-voiced sergeants. The
officers looked cold, and cowed, and foolish; the
sergeants employed ruthlessly the age-old army
sarcasms and made no effort to disguise their dis-
gust for these officers and " temporary gentle-
men."

I was directed to an office where a captain sat
writing at a desk, while an orderly waited rigidly
at attention. The captain looked up as I entered,
took in my spats and velour hat with an impatient
glance, and continued with his writing. When I
got an opportunity I presented my letter; he read
it through irritably.

" Any previous military experience? "

" None at all."

" Then how d'you expect to pass out with this
class? It's been going for nearly two weeks
already? "

Again, as though he had dismissed me from
his mind, he returned to his writing. From a
military standpoint I knew that I was justly a
figure of naught; but I also felt that he was rub-
bing it in a trifle hard. I was too recent a recruit

82 THE GLORY OF THE TRENCHES

to have lost my civilian self-respect. At last,
after a period of embarrassed silence, I asked,
*' What am I to do? To whom do I report? "

Without looking up he told me to report on the
parade ground at six o'clock the following morn-
ing. When I got back to my hotel, I reflected on
the chilliness of my reception. I had taken no
credit to myself for enlisting — I knew that I
ought to have joined months before. But six
o'clock! I glanced across at the station, where
trains were pulling out for New York; for a
moment I was tempted. But not for long; I
couldn't trust the hotel people to wake me, so I
went out and purchased an alarm clock.

That night I didn't sleep much. I was up and
dressed by five-thirty. I hid beneath the shadow
of a wall near the barracks and struck matches
to look at my watch. At ten minutes to six the
street was full of unseen, hurrying feet which
sounded ghostly in the darkness. I followed
them into the parade-ground. The parade was
falling in, rolls were being called by the aid of
flash-lamps. I caught hold of an officer; for all
I knew he might have been a General or Colonel.
I asked his advice, when I had blundered out my
story. He laughed and said I had better return
to my hotel; the class was going to stables and

THE GLORY OF THE TRENCHES 83

there was no one at that hour to whom I could re-
port.

The words of the sergeant at the Empire came
back to me, " And I'll give you hell if I get you
in my squad." I understood then : this was the
first attempt of the Army to break my heart — an
attempt often repeated and an attempt for wdiich,
from my present point of vantage, I am intensely
grateful. In those days the Canadian Overseas
Forces were comprised of volunteers; it wasn't
sufficient to express a tepid willingness to die for
your country — you had to prove yourself deter-
mined and eligible for death through your power
to endure hardship.

When I had been medically examined, passed
as fit, had donned a uniform and commenced my
training, I learnt what the enduring of hardship
was. No experience on active service has
equalled the humiliation and severity of those first
months of soldiering. We were sneered at,
cleaned stables, groomed horses, rode stripped
saddle for twelve miles at the trot, attended lec-
tures, studied till past midnight and were up on
first parade at six o'clock. No previous civilian
efficiency or prominence stood us in any stead.
We started robbed of all importance, and only
gained a new importance by our power to hang

84 THE GLORY OF THE TRENCHES

on and to develop a new efficiency as soldiers.
When men " went sick " they were labelled scrim-
shankers and struck off the course. It was an
offence to let your body interfere with your duty;
if it tried to, you must ignore it. If a man
caught cold in Kingston, what would he not catch
in the trenches? Very many went down under
the physical ordeal; of the class that started, I
don't think more than a third passed. The luke-
warm soldier and the pink-tea hero, who simply
wanted to swank in a imiform, were effectually
<:hoked off. It was a test of pluck, even more
than of strength or intelligence — the same test
that a man would be subjected to all the time at
the Front. In a word it sorted out the fellows
who had " guts."

" Guts "_ isn't a particularly polligword. but
I have come increasingly to appreciate its
splen"3[rj"~sTgni!Tc3Trcer — ¥h€ — possp-ssor of this
inuch"coveted quatity is tKe""k"ind~T5"f~MTot-who,

" When his legs are smitten off
Will fight upon his stumps."

The Tommies, whom we were going to com-
mand, would be like that; if we weren't like it,
we wouldn't be any good as officers. This Ar-
tillery School had a violent way of sifting out
a man's moral worth; you hadn't much conceit

THE GLORY OF THE TRENCHES 85

left by the end of it. I had not felt myself so
paltry since the day when I was left at my first
boarding-school in knickerbockers.

After one had qualified and been appointed to a
batter}-, there was still difficulty in getting to
England. I was lucky, and went over early with
a draft of officers who had been cabled for as re-
inforcements. I had been in England a bare
three weeks when my name was posted as due to
go to France.

How did I feel? Nervous, of course, but also
intensely eager. I may have been afraid of
wounds and death — I don't remember ; I was
certainly nothing like as afraid as I had been
before I wore uniform. My chief fear was
that I would be afraid and might show it. Like
the pale-faced chap in the tap-room at Stratford,
I had fleeting glimpses of myself being shot as a
deserter.

At this point something happened which at
least proved to me that I had made moral
progress. I'd finished my packing and was doing
a last rush round, when I caught in large letter-
ing on a newsboard the heading, " peace
RUMOURED." Before I realised what had hap-
pened I was cr}'ing. I vras furious with disap-
pointment. H the war should end before I got
there ! On buying a paper I assured my-

86 THE GLORY OF THE TRENCHES

self that such a disaster was quite improbable.
I breathed again. Then the reproachful memory
came of another occasion when I had been scared
by a headline, " Boulogne Has Fallen." I had
been scared lest I might be needed at that time ;
now I was panic-stricken lest I might arrive too
late. There was a change in me; something
deep-rooted had happened. I got to thinking
about it. On that motor-trip through England
I had considered myself in the light of a phil-
anthropist, who might come to the help of the
Allies and might not. No\iL,all I asked was to be
considered worthy to do my infinitesimal " bit."
I had lost all my old conceits and Kallucinations,
^nd^jhad come to respect'myself iha vefjrtfumble
fashion not for what I was, but for the cause in
which, I w^as prepared to iight. Xbe know^Iedge

that I belpng-ed to thp phyg'rrilly ^^ rnntrjb^ltprl

jtothis saner sense of pride; before I wore a uni-
fomU-I had had the morbKi fear that 1 migHTnoF
be up to standard. And then the uniform! It
was J:he" outward symbol of the "l^gf ^selfishness"
and tlie^leaner honour. _ It hadn't been paid for ;
it WQuldirt be paid for till I had hved in the
trgacheS;^ I was childishl}^ anxious to earn my
right to wear it. 1 had said " Good-bye " to my-
selfT and had been re-born into willing sacrifice.
I think that w^as the reason for the difference of

THE GLORY OF THE TRENCHES 87

spirit in which I read the two headHnes. We've
all gone through the same spiritual gradations,
we men who have got to the Front. None of us
know how to express our conversion. All we
know is that from being little circumscribed
egoists, we have swamped our identities in a
magnanimous crusade. The venture looked fatal
at first; but in losing the whole world we have
gained our own souls.

On a beautiful day in late summer I sailed for
France. England faded out like a dream be-
hind. Through the haze in mid-Channel a hospi-
tal ship came racing; on her sides were blazoned
the scarlet cross. The next time I came to Eng-
land I might travel on that racing ship. The
truth sounded like a lie. It seemed far more true
that I was going on my annual pleasure trip to the
lazy cities of romance.

The port at which we disembarked was cheery
and almost normal. One saw a lot of khaki
mingling with sky-blue tiger-men of France.
Apart from that one would scarcely have guessed
that the greatest war in the world's history was
raging not more than fifty miles away. I slept
the night at a comfortable hotel on the quay-
side. There was no apparent shortage; I got
everything that I required. Next day I boarded
a train which, I was told, would carry me to the

88 THE GLORY OF THE TRENCHES

Front. We puffed along in a leisurely sort of
way. The engineer seemed to halt whenever he
had a mind; no matter where he halted, grubby
children miraculously appeared and ran along the
bank, demanding from Monsieur Engleeshman
" ceegarettes " and " beescuits." Towards even-
ing we pulled up at a little town where we had
a most excellent meal. No hint of war yet.
Night came down and we found that our carriage
had no lights. It must have been nearing dawn,
when I was wakened by the distant thunder of
guns. I crouched in my corner, cold and
cramped, trying to visualise the terror of it. I
asked^^mysel f__whether I was afraid. J^jjoTof
Death," I told myself. " But of being afraid
— yeSj_jn£stJiorribly."

At five o'clock we halted at a junction, where
a troop-train from the Front was already at a
standstill. Tommies in steel helmets and mud-
died to the eyes were swarming out onto the
tracks. They looked terrible men with their
tanned cheeks and haggard eyes. I felt how im-
practical I was as I watched them — how ill-
suited for campaigning. They were making the
most of their respite from travelling. Some
were building little fires between the ties to do
their cooking — their utensils were bayonets and
old tomato cans; others were collecting water

THE GLORY OF THE TRENCHES 89

from the exhaust of an engine and shaving. I
had already tried to purchase food and had
failed, so I copied their example and set about
shaving.

Later in the day we passed gangs of Hun
prisoners — clumsy looking fellows, with flaxen
hair and blue eyes, who seemed to be thanking
God every minute with smiles that they were out
of danger and on our side of the line. Late in
the afternoon the engine jumped'the rails; we
were advised to wander off to a rest-camp, the
direction of which was sketchily indicated. We
found some Australians with a transport-wagon
and persuaded them to help us with our baggage.
It had been pouring heavily, but the clouds had
dispersed and a rainbow spanned the sky. I took
it for a sign.

After trudging about six miles, we arrived at
the camp and found that it was out of food and
that all the tents were occupied. We stretched
our sleeping-bags on the ground and went to bed
supperless. We had had no food all day. Next
morning we were told that we ought to jump an
ammunition-lorry, if we wanted to get any
further on our journey. Nobody seemed to want
us particularly, and no one could give us the least
information as to where our division was. It
was another lesson, if that were needed, of our

90 THE GLORY OF THE TRENCHES

total unimportance. While we were waiting on
the roadside, an Australian brigade of artillery
passed by. The men's faces were dreary with
fatigue; the gunners were dismounted and
marched as in a trance. The harness was
muddy, the steel rusty, the horses lean and dis-
couraged. We understood that they were pull-
ing out from an offensive in which they had re-
ceived a bad cutting up. To my overstrained
imagination it seemed that the men had the vision
of death in their eyes.

Presently we spotted a lorry-driver who had,
what George Robey would call, " a kind and gen-
erous face." We took advantage of him, for
once having persuaded him to give us a lift, we
froze onto him and made him cart us about the
country all day. We kept him kind and gen-
erous, I regret to say, by buying him wine at far
too many estaminets.

Towards evening the thunder of the guns had
swelled into --an ominous roar. We passed
through villages disfigured by shell-fire. Civil-
ians became more rare and more asred. Cattle
disappeared utterly from the landscape; fields
were furrowed with abandoned trenches, in front
of which hung entanglements of wire. Mounted
orderlies splashed along sullen roads at an im-
patient trot. Here and there we came across im-

THE GLORY OF THE TRENCHES 91

provised bivouacs of infantry. Far away
against the horizon towards which we travelled,
Hun flares and rockets were going up. Hopeless
stoicism, unutterable desolation — that was my
first impression.

The landscape was getting increasingly muddy
— it became a sea of mud. Despatch-riders on
motor-bikes travelled warily, with their feet
dragging to save themselves from falling.
Ever\-thing was splashed with filth and cor-
ruption; one marvelled at the cleanness of the
sky. Trees were blasted, and seemed to be sink-
ing out of sight in this war-created Slough of
Despond. We came to the brow of a hill ; in the
valley was something" that I recognised. The
last time I had seen it was in an etching in a
shop window in Newark, New Jersey. It was
a town, from the midst of whose battered ruins
a splintered tower soared against the sky. Lean-
ing far out from the tower, so that it seemed she
must drop, was a statue of the Virgin with the
Christ in her arms. It was a superstition with
the French, I remembered, that so long as she
did not fall, things would go well with the Allies.
As we watched, a shell screamed over the gap-
ing roofs and a column of smoke went up.
Gehenna, being blessed by the infant Jesus —
that was what I saw.

92 THE GLORY OF THE TRENCHES

As we entered the streets, Tommies more
polluted than miners crept out from the skeletons
of houses. They leant listlessly against sagging
doorways to watch us pass. H we asked for
information as to where our division was, they
shook their heads stupidly, too indifferent with
weariness to reply. We found the Town
Mayor; all that he could tell us was that
our division wasn't here yet, but was expected
any day — probably it was still on the line of
march. Our lorry-driver was growing im-
patient. We wrote him out a note which would
explain his wanderings, got him to deposit us
near a Y. M. C. A. tent, and bade him an un-
cordial " Good-bye." For the next three nights
we slept by our wits and got our food by forag-
ing.

There was a Headquarters near by whose
battalion was in the line. I struck up a liaison
with its officers, and at times went into the
crowded tent, which was their mess, to get warm.
Runners would come there at all hours of the
day and night, bringing messages from the
Front. They were usually well spent. Some-
times they had been gassed ; but they all had the
invincible determination to carry on. After they
had delivered their message, they would lie down
in the mud and go to sleep like dogs. The

THE GLORY OF THE TRENCHES 93^

moment the reply was ready, they would lurch to
their feet, throwing off their weariness, as though
it were a thing to be conquered and despised. I
appreciated now, as never before, the lesson of
" guts " that I had been taught at Kingston.

There was one officer at Battalion Headquar-
ters who, whenever I entered, was always writ-
ing, writing, writing. What he was writing I
never enquired — perhaps letters to his sweet-
heart or wife. It didn't matter how long I
stayed, he never seemed to have the time to look
up. He was a Highlander — a big man with a
look of fate in his eyes. His hair was black; his
face stern, and set, and extremely white. I re-
member once seeing him long after midnight
through the raised flap of the tent. All his
brother officers were asleep, huddled like sacks
impersonally on the floor. At the table in the
centre he sat, his head bowed in his hands, the
light from the lamp spilling over his neck and
forehead. He may have been praying. He re-
called to my mind the famous picture of The
Last Sleep of Argyle. From that moment I had
the premonition that he would not live long. A
month later I learnt that he had been killed on
his next trip into the trenches.

After three days of waiting my division ar-
rived and I was attached to a battery. I had

94 THE GLORY OF THE TRENCHES

scarcely had time to make the acquaintance of my
new companions, when we pulled into my first
attack.

We hooked in at dawn and set out through a
dense white mist. The mist was wet and miser-
able, but excellent for our purpose; it prevented
us from being spotted by enemy balloons and
aeroplanes. We made all the haste that was
possible; but in places the roads were blocked by
other batteries moving into new positions. We
passed through the town above which the Virgin
floated with the infant Jesus in her arms. One
wondered whether she was really holding him out
to bless; her attitude might equally have been
that of one who was flinging him down into the
shambles, disgusted with this travesty on reli-
gion.

The other side of the town the ravages of war
were far more marked. All the way along the
roadside were clumps of little crosses, French,
English, German, planted above the hurried
graves of the brave fellows who had fallen.
Ambulances were picking their way warily, re-
turning with the last night's toll of wounded.
We saw newly dead men and horses, pulled to
one side, who had been caught in the darkness
by the enemy's harassing fire. In places the
country had holes the size of quarries, where

THE GLORY OF THE TRENCHES 95

mines had exploded and shells from large calibre
guns had detonated. Bedlam was raging up
front; shells went screaming over us, seeking
out victims in the back-country. To have been
there by oneself would have been most disturb-
ing, but the men about me seemed to regard it as
perfectly ord\na.ry and normal. I steadied my-
self by their example.

We came to a point where our Major was wait-
ing for us, turned out of the road, followed him
down a grass slope and so into a valley. Here
gun-pits were in the process of construction.
Guns were unhooked and man-handled into their
positions, and the teams sent back to the wagon-
lines. All day we worked, both officers and
men, with pick and shovel. Towards evening we
had completed the gun-platforms and made a
beginning on the overhead cover. We had had
no time to prepare sleeping-quarters, so spread
our sleeping-bags and blankets in the caved-in
trenches. About seven o'clock, as we were rest-
ing, the evening " hate " commenced. In those
days the evening " hate " was a regular habit
with the Hun. He knew our country better
than we did, for he had retired from it. Every
evening he used to search out all communication
trenches and likely battery-positions with any
quantity of shells. His idea was to rob us of

96 THE GLORY OF THE TRENCHES

our morale. I wish he might have seen how
abysmally he failed to do it. Down our narrow
valley, like a flight of arrows, the shells screamed
and whistled. Where they struck, the ground
looked like Resurrection Day with the dead el-
bowing their way into daylight and forcing back
the earth from their eyes. There were actually
many dead just beneath the surface and, as the
ground was ploughed up, the smell of corruption
became distinctly unpleasant. Presently the
shells began to go dud ; we realised that they were
gas-shells. A thin, bluish vapour spread through-
out the valley and breathing became oppressive.
Then like stallions, kicking in their stalls, the
heavy guns on the ridge above us opened. It
was fine to hear them stamping their defiance; it
made one want to get to grips with his ag-
gressors. In the brief silences one could hear
our chaps laughing. The danger seemed to fill
them with a wild excitement. Every time a
shell came near and missed them, they would
taunt the unseen Huns for their poor gunnery,
giving what the}^ considered the necessary cor-
rections: "Five minutes more left, old Cock.
If you'd only drop fifty, you'd get us." These
men didn't know what fear was — or, if they did,
they kept it to themselves. And these were the
chaps whom I was to order.

THE GLORY OF THE TRENCHES 97

A few days later my Major told me that I was
to be ready at 3 130 next morning to accompany
him up front to register the gims. In registering
guns you take a telephonist and linesmen with
you. They lay in a line from the battery to any
point you may select as the best from which to
observe the enemy's countr}-. This point may be
two miles or more in advance of your battery.
Your battery is always hidden and out of sight,
for fear the enemy should sec the flash of the fir-
ing; consequently the officer in charge of the bat-
tery lays the guns mathematically, but cannot
observe the effect of his shots. The officer who
goes forward can see the target; by telephoning
back his corrections, he makes himself the eyes of
the officer at the gims.

It had been raining when we crept out of our
kennels to go forward. It seems unnecessary to
state that it had been raining, for it always has
been raining at the Front. I don't remember
what degree of mud we had attained. W'q have
a variety of adjectives, and none of them polite,
to describe each stage. The worst of all is what
we call "God-Awful Mud." I don't think it
was as bad as that, but it was bad enough.
Everything was dim, and clammy, and spectral.
At the hour of dawn one isn't at his bravest. It
was like walking at the bottom of the sea, only

98 THE GLORY OF THE TRENCHES

things that were thrown at you travelled faster.
We struck a sloppy road, along which ghostly
figures passed, with ground sheets flung across
their head and shoulders, like hooded monks.
At a point where scarlet bundles were being
lifted into ambulances, we branched overland.
Here and there from all directions, infantry were
converging, picking their way in single file to
reduce their casualties if a shell burst near them.
The landscape, the people, the early morning —
everything was stealthy and walked with muted
steps.

We entered a trench. Holes were scooped
out in the side of it just large enough to shelter
a man crouching. Each hole contained a sleep-
ing soldier who looked as dead as the occupant
of a catacomb. Some of the holes had been
blown in ; all you saw of the late occupant was
a protruding arm or leg. At best there was a
horrid similarity between the dead and the living.
It seemed that the walls of the trenches had been
built out of corpses, for one recognised the uni-
forms of French men and Huns. They zverc
built out of them, though whether by design or
accident it was impossible to tell. We came to
a group of men, doing some repairing; that part
of the trench had evidently been strafed last
night. They didn't know where they were, or

THE GLORY OF THE TRENCHES 99

how far it was to the front-Hne. We wandered
on. still laying in our wire. The Colonel of our
Brigade joined us and we waded on together.

The enemy shelling was growing more intense,
as was always the way on the Sonmie when we
were bringing out our wounded. A good many
of our trenches were directly enfilade; shells
burst just behind the parapet, when they didn't
burst on it. It was at about this point in my
breaking-in that I received a blow on the head —
and thanked God for the man who invented the
steel helmet.

Things were getting distinctly curious. We
hadn't passed any infantry for some time. The
trenches were becoming each minute more shal-
low .and neglected. Suddenly we found our-
selves in a narrow furrow which was packed with
our own dead. They had been there for some
time and were partly buried. They were sitting
up or lying forward in every attitude of agony.
Some of them clasped their wounds; some of
them pointed with their hands. Their faces had
changed to every colour and glared at us like
swollen bruises. Their helmets were off; with
a pitiful, derisive neatness the rain had parted
their hair.

We had to crouch low because the trench was
so shallow. It was diflicult not to disturb them;

^

lOO THE GLORY OF THE TRENCHES

the long skirts of our trench-coats brushed
against their faces.

All of a sudden we halted, making ourselves as
small as could be. In the rapidly thinning mist
ahead of us, men were moving. They were
stretcher-bearers. The odd thing was that they
were carrying their wounded away from, instead
of towards us. Then it flashed on us that they
were Huns. We had wandered into No IMan's
Land. Almost at that moment we must have
been spotted, for shells commenced falling at
the end of the trench by which we had entered.
Spreading out, so as not to attract attention, we
commenced to crawl towards the other end. In-
stantly that also was closed to us and a curtain
of shells started dropping behind us. We were
trapped. With perfect coolness — a coolness
which, whatever I looked, I did not share — we
went down on our hands and knees, wriggling
our way through the corpses and shell-holes in
the direction of where our front-line ought to
be. After what seemed an age, we got back.
Latcr-w€--registered the guns, and one of our
officers who had been laying in wire, was killed

^"^-thg^ process. His -death, like everything else,

was regarded without emotion-^!j beiii^ cjuite"
ov4ms.ry.

On the way out, when we had come to a part

THE GLORY OF THE TRENCHES loi

of our journey where the tension was relaxed
and we could be less cautious, I saw a signalling
officer lying asleep under a blackened tree. I
called my Major's attention to him, saying,
" Look at that silly ass. sir. He'll get something
that he doesn't want if he lies there much longer."

My Major turned his head, and said briefly,
" Poor chap, he's got it."

Then I saw that his shoulder-blade had burst
through his tunic and was protruding. He'd
been coming out, walking freely and feeling that
the danger was over, just as we were, when the
unlucky shell had caught him. " His name must
have been written on it," our men say when
that happens. I noticed that he had black boots ;
since then nothing would persuade me to wear
black boots in the trenches.

This first experience in No Man's Land did
away with my. last flabby fear — that. "if I was
afcaiilwould show it. One is often afraid.
Anj^^^soldier who asserts tHe contrary may not be
a,iiar. buTTjejcertainTyTToes hot speak the truth.
Ph^s[cal fear is too deeply rooted to be over-
comcJLty any aniount of training; it remains, then,
tQjrain a man in spiritual pride, so that when he
fears*__O.Qbcdy knows it. Cowardice is conta-
gictUS. It -^la^ bg^n said that no battalian is
hravf-r ih:tn itc ip-|c;^ I'rave member. Military

X

^

1 02 THE GLORY OF THE TRENCHES

courage, J^.-ih€i^€4ei^ -a -forni_ji£_uns^ shness ;
il^js^practised that it may save weaker men's
lives and uphold theiF Honour. .The worst thing
YOuTSjTT^T^'^'f^S'fr^TfierVr^rif I'g, " TTp doesn't

play the game." That doesn't of necessity mean
tlianreTails to "3o his duty ; what it means islliat
he TaTTs^to 3o a litTIe bit more than his 3utyr '

When a man plays We^gaihe, he does things
which it requires a braver man than htrriself to
accomplish; he nevjET.Jknows when he's done; he
acknowledges^ nQ..Jlimit-_tQ_,Jiis cheerfulness and
strength; whatever his rank^ he holds^ Jiis life
^'^P^"^§lVL?iy„^-il}5:2_?hat^f Jthe humblest; he laughs
aLjdanger-.iiQt Jbecanae Jie-dQes not drenH" Tt7"biit-
W/^a.usp hp hng l^arnf thaf there Rff. ajlmfnts m<^^f^
terrible and less curable-lhan. death.

The rnen in thejanks taught me whatever I
k-wQw: about plaving the game. I learnt from
th«iiL,_example. In acknowledging this, I own
up to the new equality, based on heroic values,
which this war has established. The only man
w^ho-xQimlS^llLQllt there " is the man wHo is suffi-
cienll^s^elf-effacing to show courage. The chaps
wha haven't done it are the ~exceptions7 ^

At the start of the war there were a good
many persons whom we were apt to think of as
common and unclean. But social distinctions are
a wash-out in the trenches. We have seen St.

THE GLORY OF THE TRENCHES 103

Peter's vision, and have heard the voice,
" What God hath cleansed, that call not thou
common."

Until I became a part of the^jwar^X-was a
doubter~£Lf nobility in others and a sceptic as
regards myself. The growth of my personal
V i s i oiio>vas complete when I recognisecLtJiat-ihe

rnpar^y nj Viprni^m U btpnt in evpryhodv-,-^

only awaits the bigness of the opportunity to call
it out.

THE GLORY OF THE TRENCHES

We were too proud to live for years

When our poor death could dry the tears

Of little children yet unborn.

It scarcely mattered that at morn,

When manhood's hope was at its height.

We stopped a bullet in mid-flight.

It did not trouble us to lie

Forgotten 'neath the forgetting sky.

So long Sleep was our only cure

That when Death piped of rest made sure.

We cast our fleshly crutches down,

Laughing like boys in Hamelin Town.

And this we did zvhile loving life,

Yet loving more than home or wife

The kindness of a world set free

For countless children yet to be.

Ill

GOD AS WE SEE HIAI

For some time before I was wounded, we had
been in very hot places. We could scarcely ex-
pect them to be otherwise, for we had put on
show after show. A " show " in our language,
I should explain, has nothing in common with a
theatrical performance, though it does not lack
drama. We make the term apply to any method
of irritating the Hun, from a trench-raid to a
big offensive. The Hun was decidedly annoyed.
He had very good reason. We were occupying
the dug-outs which he had spent two years in
building with French civilian labour. His U-
boat threats had failed. He had offered us the
olive-branch, and his peace terms had been re-
jected with a peal of guns all along the Western
Front. He had shown his disapproval of us by
paying particular attention to our batteries; as
a consequence our shell-dressings were all used
up, having gone out with the gentlemen on
stretchers who were contemplating a vacation in

105

io6 THE GLORY OF THE TRENCHES

Blighty. We couldn't get enough to re-place
them. There was a hitch somewhere. The de-
mand for shell-dressings exceeded the supply.
So I got on my horse one Sunday and, with my
groom accompanying me, rode into the back-
country to see if I couldn't pick some up at va-
rious Field Dressing Stations and Collecting
Points.

In the course of my wanderings I came to a
cathedral city. It was a city which was and still
is beautiful, despite the constant bombardments.
The Huns had just finished hurling a few more
tons of explosives into it as I and my groom en-
tered. The streets were deserted; it might have
been a city of the dead. There was no sound,
except the ringing iron of our horses' shoes on
the cobble pavement. Here and there we came
to what looked like a barricade which barred our
progress ; actually it was the piled-up walls and
rubbish of buildings which had collapsed. From
cellars, now and then, faces of women, children
and ancient men peered out — they were sharp
and pointed like rats. One's imagination went
back five hundred years — everything seemed
mediaeval, short-lived and brutal. This might
have been Limoges after the Black Prince had
finished massacring its citizens; or it might have
been Paris, when the wolves came down and

THE GLORY OF THE TRENCHES 107

Frangois Villon tried to find a lodging for the
night.

I turned up through narrow alleys where grass
was growing and found myself, almost by acci-
dent, in a garden. It was a green and spacious
garden, with fifteen-foot walls about it and
flowers which scattered themselves broadcast in
neglected riot. We dismounted and tied our
horses. Wandering along its paths, we came
across little summer-houses, statues, fountains
and then, without any hindrance, found ourselves
in the nave of a fine cathedral which was roofed
only by the sky. Two years of the Huns had
made it as much a ruin as Tintern Abl^ey. Here,
too, the flowers had intruded. They grew be-
tween graves in the pa\ement and scrambled up
the walls, wherever they could find a foothold.
At the far end of this stretch of destruction stood
the high altar, totally untouched by the hurricane
of shell-fire. The saints were perched in their
niches, composed and stately. The Christ looked
down from His cross, as he had done for centu-
ries, sweeping the length of splendid architecture
with sad eyes. It seemed a miracle that the altar
had been spared, when everything else had fallen.
A reason is given for its escape. Every Sabbath
since the start of the war, no matter how severe
the bombardment, service has been held there.

(5)

io8 THE GLORY OF THE TRENCHES

The thin- faced women, rat- faced children and
ancient men have crept out from their cellars and
gathered about the priest; the lamp has been lit,
the Host uplifted. The Hun is aware of this;
with malice aforethought he lands shells into the
cathedral every Sunday in an effort to smash the
altar. So far he has failed. One finds in this
a symbol — that in the heart of the maelstrom
of horror, which this war has created, there is
a quiet place where the lamp of gentleness and
honour is kept burning. The Hun will have to
do a lot more shelling before he puts the lamp
of kindness out. From the polluted trenches of
Vimy the poppies spring up, blazoning abroad in
vivid scarlet the heroism of our lads' willing sac-
rifice. All this April, high above the shouting of
our guns, the larks sang joyously. The scarlet
of the poppies, the song of the larks, the lamp
shining on the altar are only external signs of
the unconquerable, happv religion whichJies-hid-
(inrin thr hrnrt"! of our m^n. Their religion is
tVif-'^ifeLig-inn nf heroism. which-JJiey,.lLa¥a..l£arnt_

ii»^he ^lory of the trenrhes

There was a line from William Morris's
Earthly Paradise which used to hauTit me, es-
pecially in the early days when I was first
experiencing what war really meant. Since re-
turning for a brief space to where books are ac-

s>

THE GLORY OF THE TRENCHES 109

cessible, I have looked up the quotation. It reads
as follows : —

" Of Heaven or Hell I have no power to sing,
I cannot ease the burden of your fears
Or make quick-coming death a little thing."

._It is the last line that makes me smile rather
quietly. "Or mnke quick-coming death a little
.thing." I smile heranso thp sonls who wear
khaki have learnt to rlo just ^.h^-^t. Morris goes
on to say that all he can do to make people happy
is to tell them deathless stories about heroes who
have passed into the world of the imagination,
and, because of that, are immune from death.
He calls himself "the idle singer of an empty
day." How typical he is of the days before the
war when people had only pin-pricks to endure,
and, consequently, didn't exert themselves to be
brave! A l^irr sncrifirf^ wbirb bnnK'rnpts one's
■ti-fiTi ir nlvi'ny^ m^TP bpnrnblf^ tlmp the; little ine \' i -

table annoyances f)f si^kT^o^<; f1i>;nppniTitmpnt nnd

dyinpr in n hr-d It's easier for Christ to go to
Calvar}' tlian for an on-looker to lose a night's
sleep in the garden. When the world went well
with us l)efore the war, we were doubters.
Nearly all the fiction of the past fifteen years is
2. proof of that — it records our fear of failure,
sex, old age and particularly of a God who re-

■*-

no THE GLORY OF THE TRENCHES

fuses to explain Himself. Now, when we have
thrust the world, affections, life itself behind
us and gaze hourly into the eyes of Death, belief
comes as simply and clearly as it did when we
were children. Curious and extraordinary!
The burden of our fears has slipped from our
shoulders in our attempt to do something for
others ; the unbelievable and long coveted miracle
has happened — at last to every soul who has
grasped his chance of heroism quick-coming death
has become a fifth-rate calamity.

In saying thi'^ T dn nnt mpan trt glnrify ^rar;

\v;:ar can never be anvthinp- hut hpRstIv and
damnable. It dates back to the jungle. _But
^hgjl^ A^'e ^wo k-ind.qL^i3£,„war. There's the kind
., that.a highwayman^ wayeSj when he pounces from
ihe. himhp'^ and assanlts a defenceless wDman ;
tjjprf?'s» ths kind you wage-¥»4^n yQU-gXL-tQ_Ji£r. .
rescue. The h[ghwavman can't expect to come
J^llLi^ tbf^ flgbt wifb a loftier morality— -^vou
can. Qur_chaps never wanted to fight. They
l^te fighting; it's that hatred ojjj^^ thjngtHe'y
ai:£_compelled to do that makp^ fhem so terrible.
The last thought to enter their heads four years
ago was that to-dav thev would 1^^]^^^ khaki.
They had never been trained to the use of arms;
a good many of them conceived of themselves as
cowards. They entered the war to defend

THE GLORY OF THE TRENCHES iii

rather than to destroy. They hterally put behind
I^Ptp li.-^iw<^c, l>r>-f-lTy-^^p^ sisters, father, mother,
w i fr, rhiMrrn, huiU f^^r tlip k'inp-tlnm ot l-fpav-
en's sake, thou^li thev would bcthcTasttevexpress
themselves in that fashion. -

At a cross-road at the bottom of a hill, on the
way to a gun-position we once had, stood a Cal-
vary— one of those wayside altars, so frequently
met in France, with pollarded trees surrounding
it and an image of Christ in His agony. Pious
peasants on their journey to market or as they
worked in the fields, had been accustomed to raise
their eyes to it and cross themselves. It had
comforted them with the knowledge of protec-
tion. The road leading back from it and up the
hill was gleaming white — a direct enfilade for
the Hun, and always under observation. He
kept gims trained on it ; at odd intervals, any hour
during the day or night, he would sweep it with
shell-fire. The woods in the vicinity were
blasted and blackened. It was the season for
leaves and flowers, but there was no greenness.
Whatever of vegetation had not been uprooted
and buried, had been poisoned by gas.' The
atmosphere was vile with the (ulonr of dio^aAdnfT-
ftc^. In the early morning, if you' passed by
the Calvary, there was always some fresh trag-
edy. The newly dead lay sprawled out against

112 THE GLORY OF THE TRENCHES

its steps, as though they had dragged themselves
there in their last moments. H you looked along
the road, all the glazed eyes seemed to stare
towards it. " Lord, remember me when thou
comest into thy Kingdom," they seemed to say.
The wooden Christ gazed down on them from
His cross, with a suffering which two thousand
years ago he had shared. The terrible pity_of
TT;g Qilpnrp ^pemed in he telh'ng them that thev
had become one with Him in their final sacrifice.

Thev had"'<- 1^'^^^^ Hi" lif^— far fmtn it; lin-

knnujnplv thev had died His death. That's a.
part of the glory of the trenches, that a man who
haaJlQt-bmi-^QQd^caji gryicify himself and.hajig
h£dd£XlmsLilLJtie..eM-. One wonders in what
pleasant places those weary souls find rest.

There was a second Calvary — a heap of ruins.
I^othing of the altar or trees, by which it had
been surrounded, was left. The first time I
passed it, I saw a foot protruding. The man
imight be wounded ; I climbed up to examine and
pulled aside the debris. Beneath it I found, like
that of one three weeks dead, the naked body of
the Christ. The exploding shell had wrenched
it from its cross. Aslant the face, with gratui-
tous blasphemy, the crown of thorns was tilted.

These two Calvaries, picture f or . meJiLe_£art
that '"ClTrTsr'rs "playing in the present war.; He

THE GLORY OF THE TRENCHES 113

survives injJlP W^^^^^ gf^U'-pfFQrpmpnt.r^f flip mPT)^

riis re-crucified in the defilementsthat are
v;rought upon their bodies.
7God_a^ y-p '^p'^ TTi't-ni >\|-|f] r\r^ v,-^ cao Him?

I think so. but not always consciously. H.e
moves among us in the forms of our brother men.
\\"e see him most evidently when danger is most
threatening and courage is at its highest We
don t often recognise Him out loud. Our chaps
don't assert that they're His fellow-campaigners.
They're too humble-minded and inarticulate for
that. They're where they are because they want
to do their "bit" — their duty. A carefully
disguised instinct of honour brought them there.
" Doing their bit " in Bible language means, lay-
ing down their lives for their friends. After
all they're not so far from Nazareth.

'^ Doing their bit!" That covers everything.
Here's an example of how God walks among us.
In one of our attacks on the Somme, all the ob-
servers up forward were uncertain as to what
had happened. We didn't know whether our in-
fantry had captured their objective, failed, or
gone beyond it. The battlefield, as far as eye
could reach, was a bath of mud. It is extremely
easy in the excitement of an offensive, when all
landmarks are blotted out, for our storming par-
ties to lose their direction. If this happens, a

TT4 THE GLORY OF THE TRENCHES

number of dangers may result. A battalion may
find itself' " up in the air," which means that it
has failed to connect with the battalions on its
right and left; its flanks are then exposed to the
enemy. It may advance too far, and start dig-
ging itself in at a point where it was previously
arranged that our artillery should place their pro-
tective wall of fire. We, being up forward as
artillery observers, are the eyes of the army. It
is our business to watch for such contingencies,
to keep in touch with the situation as it pro-
gresses and to send our information back as
quickly as possible. We were peering through
our glasses from our point of vantage when, far
away in the thickest of the battle-smoke, we saw
a white flag wagging, sending back messages.
The flag-wagging was repeated desperately ; it
was evident that no one had replied, and prob-
able that no one had picked up the messages. A
signaller who was with us, read the language for
us. A company of infantry had advanced too
far ; they were most of them wounded, very many
of them dead, and they were in danger of being
surrounded. They asked for our artillery to
place a curtain of fire in front of them, and for
reinforcements to be sent up.

We at once 'phoned the orders through to our
artillery and notified the infantry headquarters of

THE GLORY OF THE TRENCHES 115

the division that was holding that front. But it
was necessary to let those chaps know that we
were aware of tlieir predicament. They'd hang
on if they knew that; otherwise .

Without orders our signaller was getting his
flags ready. If he hopped out of the trench
onto the parapet, he didn't stand a fifty-fifty
chance. The Hun was familiar with our ob-
servation station and strafed it with persistent
regularity.

The signaller turned to the senior officer pres-
ent. "What will I send them, sir?"

" Tell them their messages have been received
and that help is coming."

Out the chap scrambled, a flag in either hand
— he was nothing but a boy. He ran crouching
like a rabbit to a hump of mud where his figure
would show up against the sky. His flags com-
menced wagging. " Messages received. Help
coming." They didn't see him at first. He had
to repeat the words. We watched him breath-
lessly. We knew what would happen ; at last
it happened. A Hun observer had .spotted him
and flashed the target back to his guns. All
about him the mud commenced to leap and bub-
ble. He went on signalling the good word to
tliose stranded men up front, " Messages re-
ceived. Help coming." At last they'd seen

ii6 THE GLORY OF THE TRENCHES

him. They were signahng, " O. K." It was
at that moment that a whizz-bang lifted him off
his feet and landed him all of a huddle. His
" bit! " It was what he'd volunteered to do,
when he came from Canada. The signalled " O.
K." in the battlesmoke was like a testimony to
his character.

That's the kind of peep at God we get on the
Western Front. It isn't a sad peep, either.
When men die for something^ worth while death
OSes all its terror. It'^ petering out in bed from
sickness or old age that's so horrifying. Many
a man, whose cowardice is at loggerheads with
his sense of duty, comes to the Front as a non-
combatant; he compromises with his conscience
and takes a bomb-proof job in some service
whose place is well behind the lines. He doesn't
stop there long, if he's a decent sort. Having
learnt more than ever he guessed before about the
brutal things that shell-fire can do to you, he
transfers into a fighting unit. Why? Because
danger doesn't appal; it allures. It holds a
challenge. It stings one's pride. It urges one
to seek out ascending scales of risk, just to prove
to himself that he isn't flabby. The safe job is
the only job for which there's no competition in
fighting units. You have to persuade men to be
grooms, or cooks, or batmen. If you're seeking

THE GLORY OF THE TRENCHES 117

volunteers for a chance at annihilation, you have
to cast lots to avoid the offence of rejecting. All
of this is inexplicable to civilians. I've heard
them call the men at the Front " spiritual
geniuses" — which sounds splendid, but means
nothing.

If civilian philosophers fail to explain us, we
can explain them. In their world they are the
centre of their universe. They look inward, in-
stead of outward. The sun rises and sets to
minister to their particular happiness. If they
should die. the stars would vanish. We under-
stand ; a few months ago we, too, were like that.
What makes us reckless of death is our intense
*gn^t''Mifl£_4hat\ve have alteredL \y.e__want__to
prove to ourselves in exce'^.'^ hnw ntjerl^we are
rhan^ed from \vl-^jj;wp were. In his secret heart
the egotist is a self-despiser. Can you imagine
what a difference it works in a man after years
of self-contempt, at least for one brief moment
to approve of himself? Ever since we can re-
member, we were chained to the prison-house of
our bodies; we lived to feed our bodies, to clotlie
our bodies, to preserve our bodies, tQjQiinisier to
.theirj)assions. Kqw ^'■•'" know thrlt '^^"r lM)d-H>f;(

p^rn .uncrn f\\m^y \\^f'\]^^_Jn^^wh\rh our SOUls are ^'tS^-K)

paraijiouiit. Wq caajlijng them aside any nim-
uie^-lliex become ignoble, thejnQiucnLLhe soulTuTs

^

ii8 THE GLORY OF THE TRENCHES

■departed. We have proof. Often at zero hour
we have seen whole populations of cities go over
the top and vanish, leaving behind them their
bloody rags. We should go mad if we did not
believe in immortality. We know that the phys-
ical is not the essential part. How better can a
man shake off his flesh than at the hour when his
spirit is most shining? Thfexact day when he
dies-doea-not matter — to-morrow or fifty years
hence.^ — The vital mnrern is not whm. but how.
The civilian philosopher considers what we've
lost. He forgets that it could never have been
ours for long. In many cases it was misused
and scarcely worth having while it lasted. Some
of us were too weak to use it well. We might
use it better now. We turn from such thoughts
and reckon up our gains. On the debit side we
place ourselves as we were. We probably caught
a train every morning — the same train, we went
to a business where we sat at a desk. Neither
the business nor the desk ever altered. We re-
ceived the same strafing from the same employer;
or, if we were the employer, we administered
the same strafing. We only did these things that
we might eat bread; our dreams were all selfish
— of more clothes, more respect, more food,
bigger houses. The least part of the day we
devoted to the people and the things we really

THE GLORY OF THE TRENCHES 119

cared for. And the people we loved — we
weren't always nice to them. On the credit side
we place ourselves as we are — doing a man's
job, doing it for some one else, and unafraid to
meet God.

Before the war the word " ideals " had grown
out-of-date and priggisli — we had substituted
for it the more robust word " ambitions." To-
day ideals have come back to their place in our
vocabulary. We have forgotten that we ever
had ambitions, but at this moment men are drown-
ing for ideals in the mud of Flanders.

Nevertheless, it is true; it isn't naturaj^ to be
brave. How, then, have multitudes of men ac-
quirpfPlhm 9iulHpn k-nnrL- qj cnumfre^^ Thev
have been educated bv the greatness of the oc-
casion ; when big sacrifices have been demanded, ^j^y
jnen have never been found lacking. And they^ —
hnvfi arqnirpd it thrnngh. discipline and training.

W'liQiyou have subjected yourself to disci-
pi ine,-4XiiIx£iiE20Il5ll^inllE2!III^t^^ riot ("^r^
ynu, 111 if n. p.-^rt of a company of men, "li yt>u ^"^^

don't do your duty, you throw the whoTe>nachine
out. You soon learn the hard lesson that every
n?ft4ila lifp rifif] every man's service l^elong to ^ ")
QiImLJ?<?oplc. Of this the organisation~~T)f an
army is a vivid illustration. Take the infantry.
for instance. They can't fight by themselves ;

120 THE GLORY OF THE TRENCHES

they're dependent on the support of the artillery.
The artillery, in their turn, would be terribly
crippled, were it not for the gallantry of the air
service. If the infantry collapse, the guns have
to go back; if the infantry advance, the guns
have to be pulled forward. This close inter-
dependence of service on service, division on di-
vision, battalion on battery, follows right down
through the army till it reaches the individual,
so that each man feels that the day will be lost
if he fails. His imagination becomes intrigued
b}^ih€-immensit7^fThe stakes for which he plays."
AnoLphx^i^^LcaL^^^'^y which may happen to him-
self becomes trifling when compared with the dis-
grace he would bring upon his regiment if Tie
were not courageous.

*" A few~months ago I was handing over a bat-
• tery-position in a fairly warm place. The major,
who came up to take over from me, brought with
him a subaltern and just enough men to run the
guns. Within half-an-hour of their arrival, a
stray shell came over and caught the subaltern
and five of the gun-detachment. It was plain at
once that the subaltern was dying — his name
must have been written on the shell, as we say
in France. We got a stretcher and made all
haste to rush him out to a dressing-station. Just

THE GLORY OF THE TRENCHES 121

as he was leaving, he asked to speak with his
major. "I'm so sorry, sir; I didn't mean to
get wounded," he whispered. The last word he
sent back from the dressing-station where he
died, w^as, " Tell the major, I didn't mean to do
it." That's discipline. He didn't think of him-
self; all he thought of was that his major would
be left short-handed.

Here's another story, illustrating how merci-
lessly discipline can restore a man to his higher
self. Last spring, the night before an attack,
a man w^as brought into a battalion headquarters
dug-out, under arrest. The adjutant and Col-
onel were busy attending to the last details of
their preparations. The adjutant looked up
irritably,

"What is it?"

The X. C. O. of the guard answered, " We
found this man, sir, in a communication trench.
His company has been in the front-line two
hours. He was sitting down, with his equipment
thrown away, and evidently had no intention of
going up."

The adjutant glanced coldly at the prisoner.
*' What have you to say for yourself? "

The man was ghastly white and shaking like
an aspen. " Sir, I'm not the man I was since

^

122 THE GLORY OF THE TRENCHES

I saw my best friend, Jimmie, with his head
blown off and lying in his hands. It's kind of
got me. I can't face up to it."

The adjutant was silent for a few seconds;
then he said, " You know you have a double
choice. You can either be shot up there, doing
your duty, or behind the lines as a coward. It's
for you to choose. I don't care."

The interview was ended. He turned again
to the Colonel. The man slowly straightened
himself, saluted like a soldier and marched out
alone to the Front. That's what discipline does
for a man who's going back on himself.

One of the big influences that helps to keep a
soldier's soul sanitary is what is known in the
British Army as " spit and polish." Directly
we pull out for a rest, we start to work burnishing
and washing. The chaps may have shown the
most brilliant courage and self-sacrificing endur-
ance, it counts for nothing if they're untidy.
The^ first morning, no matter what are the
weather conditions, we hold an inspection; every

man Vinr fn rlinm tip wifh his rhin. sliaved^ hair

rnt^ Ifathp^* pnlisherl .and bu.ttons shining. If
he doesn't he gets hell.

There's a lot in it. You bring a man out from
a light rnrner whpfe he's Keen ill I'lOUlly contact
with death; he's apt t^ thjnk/" \Mh^i-'<^ tV.^ nc^ nf

THE GLORY OF THE TRENCHES 123

t<:4iii;;' jiri li.^ in iny^'?1f Eiji likely to be 'don e
in ' any <lnv- It'll be all the same when I 'ni
dead." D^it if he doesn't keep clean in his body,
he \yon't keep clean in his mind. The maii~\vliQ
has his buttons shining brightl^'- and his leather ^

polished, is usually the man \yho is brijihtly pol- j^

ished inside. Spit and polish teaches a man to
come out of the trenches from seeing his pals
kiTTed, and to carry on as though nothing ab-
normal had happened. T^ educates him in an
inip£i::iuuai — attitude — tnwnrds calamity which
laakes it bearable. It forces him not to regard
anything too tragically. If you can stand aside
from yourself and poke fun at your own tragedy
— and tragedy always has its humorous aspect —
that helps. The songs which have been inspired
by the trenches are examples of this tendency.

The last thing you find anybody singing " out
there" is something patriotic; the last thing you
find anybody reading is Rupert Brooke's poems.
When men sing among the shell-holes they pre-
fer a song which belittles their own heroism.
Please picture to yourself a company of mud-
stained scarecrows in steel-helmets, plodding
their way under intermittent shelling through a
battered trench, whistling and humming the fol-
lowing splendid sentiments from The Pica of
The Conscientious Objector: —

124 THE GLORY OF THE TRENCHES

" Send us the Army and the Navy. Send us the rank and
file.

Send us the grand old Territorials — they'll face the dan-
ger with a smile.

Where are the boys of the Old Brigade who made old
England free?

You may send my mother, my sister or my brother,

But for Gawd's sake don't send me."

They leave off whistling and humming to shout
the last line. A shell falls near them — then
another, then another. They crouch for a
minute against the sticky walls to escape the fly-
ing spray of death. Then they plod onward
again through the mud whistling and humming,
" But for Gawd's sake don't send me." They're
probably a carrying party, taking up the rations
to their pals. It's quite likely they'll have a bad
time to-night — there's the smell of gas in the
air. Good luck to them. They disappear round
the next traverse.

Our men sing many mad burlesques on their
own splendour — parodies on their daily fineness.
Here's a last example — a take-off on " A Little
Bit of Heaven:

»

" Oh, a little bit of shrapnel fell from out the sky one day,
And it landed on a soldier in a field not far away ;
But when they went to find him he was bust beyond re-
pair,
So they pulled his legs and arms off and they left him
lying there.

THE GLORY OF THE TRENCHES 125

Then they buried him in Flanders just to make the new

crops grow.
He'll make the best manure, they say, and sure they ought

to know.
And they put a little cross up which bore his name so

grand,
On the day he took his farewell for a better Promised

Land.

Oaeijearns to lau^h — one has to — just as
Tift.T-nc t,^ i^^r^ni t'^ Itrlirvp in iniTinirtnlity Tlie
Front affords plenty nf nrrng;iops fnr hinnnnr
ifa mnn li.ns nnly Ipnrnt t,-. Inng-h nt llim^pH I

had been sent forward to report at a battalion
headquarters as Haison officer for an attack.
The headquarters were in a captured dug-out
somewhere under a ruined house. Just as I got
there and was searching among the fallen walls
for an entrance, the Hun barrage came down.
It was like the Yellowstone Park when all the
geysers are angry at the same time. Roofs,
l>eams, chips of stone commenced to fly in every
direction. In the middle of the hubbub a small
dump of bombs was struck by a shell and started
to explode behind me. The blast of the explo-
sion caught me up and hurled me down fifteen
stairs of the dug-out I had been trying to dis-
cover. I landed on all fours in a place full of
darkness; a door banged behind me. I don't
know how long I lay there. Something was

^

126 THE GLORY OF THE TRENCHES

squirming under me. A voice said plaintively,
" I don't know who you are, but I wish you'd
get off. I'm the adjutant."

It's a queer country, that place we call " out
there." You approach our front-line, as it is
to-day, across anywhere from five to twenty miles
of battlefields. Nothing in the way of habita-
tion is left. Everything has been beaten into
pulp by hurricanes of shell-fire. First you come
to a metropolis of horse-lines, which makes you
think that a mammoth circus has arrived. Then
you come to plank roads and little light railways,
running out like veins across the mud. Far
away there's a ridge and a row of charred trees,
which stand out gloomily etched against the sky.
The sky is grey and damp and sickly ; fleecy balls
of smoke burst against it — shrapnel. You
wonder whether they've caught anybody. Over-
head you hear the purr of engines — a flight of
aeroplanes breasting the clouds. Behind you
observation balloons hang stationary, like gigan-
tic tethered sausages.

If you're riding, you dismount before you
reach the ridge and send your horse back; the
Hun country is in sight on the other side. You
creep up cautiously, taking careful note of where
the shells are falling. There's nothing to be
gained by walking into a barrage; you make up

THE GLORY OF THE TRENCHES 127

your mind to wait. The rate of fire has slack-
ened ; you make a dash for it. From the ridge
there's a pathway which runs down through the
blackened wood ; two men going alone are not

likely to be spotted. Not likely, but .

There's an old cement Hun gun-pit to the right ;
you take cover in it. " Pretty wide awake," you
say to your companion, " to have picked us out
as quickly as that."

From this sheltered hiding you have time to
gaze about you. The roof of the gun-pit is
smashed in at one corner. Our heavies did that
when the Hun held the ridge. It was good shoot-
ing. A perfect warren of tunnels and dug-outs
leads off in every direction. They were built by
the forced labour of captive French civilians.
We have found requests from them scrawled in
pencil on the boards: "I, Jean Ribeau, was
alive and well on May 12th, 191 5. If this meets
the eye of a friend, I beg that he will inform my
wife," etc.; after which follows the wife's ad-
dress. These underground fortifications proved
as much a snare as a protection to our enemies.
I smile to remember how after our infantry had
advanced three miles, they captured a Hun major
busily shaving himself in his dug-out. quite un-
aware that anything unusual was happening.
He was very angry because he had been calling

128 THE GLORY OF THE TRENCHES

in vain for his man to bring his hot water.
When he heard the footsteps of our infantry on
the stairs, he thought it was his servant and
started strafing. He got the surprise of his ven-
erable hfe when he saw the khaki.

From the gun-pit the hill slants steeply to the
plain. It was once finely wooded. Now the
trees lie thick as corpses vvhere an attack has
failed, scythed down by bursting shells. From
the foot of the hill the plain spreads out, a sea
of furrowed slime and craters. It's difficult to
pick out trenches. Nothin;^ is moving. It's
hard to believe that anything can live down there.
Suddenly, as though a gigantic egg-beater were
at work, the mud is thrashed and tormented.
Smoke drifts across the area that is being strafed ;
through the smoke the stakes and wire hurtle.
If you hadn't been in flurries of that sort your-
self, you'd think that no one could exist through
it. It's ended now ; once again the country lies
dead and breathless in a kind of horrible sus-
pense. Suspense! Yes, that's the word.

Beyond the mud, in the far cool distance is a
green untroubled country. The Huns live there.
That's the worst of doing all the attacking; we
live on the recent battlefields we have won,
whereas the enemy retreats into untouched clean-
ness. One can see church steeples peeping above

THE GLORY OF THE TRENCHES 129

woods, chateaus gleaming, and stretches of shin-
ing river. It looks innocent and kindly, but
from the depth of its greenness invisible eyes
peer out. Do you make one unwary movement,
and over comes a flock of shells.

At night from out this swamp of vileness a
phantom city floats up : it is composed of the
white Very lights and multi-coloured flares which
the Hun employs to protect his front-line from
our patrols. For brief spells No Man's Land
becomes brilliant as day. Many of his flares are
prearranged signals, meaning that his artillery
is shooting short or calling for an S.O.S. The
combination of lights which mean these things
are changed with great frequency, lest we should
guess. The on-looker, with a long night of ob-
serving before him, becomes imaginative and
weaves out for the dancing lights a kind of Shell-
Hole Nights' Entertainment. The phantom city
over there is London, New York, Paris, accord-
ing to his fancy. He's going out to dinner with
his girl. All those flares are arc-lamps along
boulevards; that last white rocket that went
flaming across the sky, was the faery taxi which
is to speed him on his happy errand. It isn't
so, one has only to remember.

We were in the Somme for several months.
The mud was up to our knees almost all the time.

!f

130 THE GLORY OF THE TRENCHES

We were perishingly cold and very rarely dry.
There was no natural cover. When we went up
forward to observe, we would stand in water to
our knees for twenty-four hours rather than go
into the dug-outs; they were so full of vermin
and battened flies. Wounded and strayed men
often drowned on their journey back from the
front-line. Many of the dead never got buried;
lives couldn't be risked in carrying them out.
We were so weary that the sight of those who
rested for ever, only stirred in us a quiet envy.
Our emotions were too exhausted for hatred —
they usually are, unless some new Hunnishness
has roused them. When we're having a bad
time, we glance across No Man's Land and say,
" Poor old Fritzie, he's getting the worst of it."
That thought helps.

An attack is a relaxation from the interminable
m©abi©Sy^ It means that we shall exchauge-th^-
old.ijiud, in which we have beenjiving, for new
mud which may be better. Months of work and
preparation have led~up to it; then one morning
at dawn, in an intense silence we wait with our
eyes glued on our watches for the exact second

which is 2ero ,hQUJC-- A-lLof a suddpn nur guns

open up, joyously as a peal of bells. It's Jike

Tudgment Day. A wild fxcitement quickens the

/ f \y , heart. Every privation was worth this moment.

THE GLORY OF THE TRENCHES 131

Youwonder where you'll be bv night-fall • — over
there, in the Hun support trenches, or in a green

tvr^rTg^^nryrlf yon n^pH tn '^'mcr about OU SunclaVS./l j.

You don't much care, so long as vou've completed ^-^^"^
your job. " We're well awav." vou lau^^h tolibc
chap next you. The show has commenced.

When you have given people every reason
you can think of which explains the spirit of
our men, they still shake their heads in a be-
wildered manner, murmuring, " I don't know
how you stand it.'' I'm going to make one last
attempt at explanation.

We stick it out by believing that we're in the
right — to believe you're in the right makes a lot
of difference. You glance across No Man's
Land and say, "Those blighters arc wrong; I'm
right." If you believe that with all the strength
of your soul and mind, you can stand anything.
To allow yourself to be beaten would be to own
that you weren't.

To still hold that you're right in the face of
armed assertions from the Hun that you're
wrong, requires pride in your regiment, your
division, your corps and, most of all, in your own
integrity. No one who has not worn a uniform
can understand what pride in a regiment can do
for a man. For instance, in France every mjijl. t^'
wcarr. hie divr^TonaT" natch, wliich marks him. ^

132 THE GLORY OF THE TRENCHES

H PiR_, JO^^}^ prnnri nf hi<; rlivi<;inn ^r\6 W^rldult
rrm^ionsly dn an3/thing to let if (jn-u^n If he
hears anything said to its credit, he treasures the
saying up; it's as if he himself had been men-
tioned in despatches. It was rumoured this year
that the night before an attack, a certain Imperial
General called his battalion commanders to-
gether. When they were assembled, he said,
" Gentlemen, I have called you together to tell
you that to-morrow morning you will be con-
fronted by one of the most difficult tasks that has
ever been allotted to you; you will have to
measure up to the traditions of the division on our
left — the First Canadian Division, which is in
my opinion the finest fighting division in France."
I don't know whether the story is true or not.
If the Imperial General didn't say it, he ought to
have. But because I belong to the First Cana-
dian Division, I believe the report true and set
store by it. Every new man who joins our di-
vision hears that story. He feels that he, too,
has got to be worthy of it. When he's tempted
to get the " wind-up," he glances down at the
patch on his arm. It means as much to him as
a V. C. ; so he steadies his nerves, squares his jaws
and plays the man.

There's believing you're right. There^syoiir
sense of pricTe, andTfien there's something else,

THE GLORY OF THE TRENCHES 133

without which neither of the other two would
■help YOU.. It seems a mad thing to sav wi
erence to fighting men, but that other thing which
enahlps yon — to meet — <;nrrifirp gladly is love.

There's a song we sing in England, a great fa-
vourite which, when it has recounted all the things
we need to make us good and happy, tops the
list with these final requisites, " A little patience
and a lot of love." We need the patience — that
goes without saying; but it's the love that helps ^^
us to die gladly — love for our cause, our pals, \yr\
oiir^family, our country. Under the disguise of —
duty one has to do an awful lot of loving at the
Front. One of the finest examples of the thing
Fm driving at, happened comparatively recently.
In a recent attack the Hun set to work to knock
out our artillery. He commenced with a heavy
shelling of our batteries — this lasted for some
hours. He followed it up by clapping down on
them a gas-barrage. The gunners' only chance
of protecting themselves from the deadly fumes
was to wear their gas-helmets. All of a sudden,
just as the gassing of our batteries was at its
worst, all along our front-line S.O.S. rockets
commenced to go up. Our infantry, if they
weren't actually being attacked, were expecting a
heavy Hun counter-attack, and were calling on us
by the quickest means possible to help them.

134 THE GLORY OF THE TRENCHES

Of a gun-detachment there are two men who
cannot do their work accurately in gas-helmets
— one of these is the la3-er and the other is the
fuse-setter. H the infantry were to be saved,
two men out of the detachment of each protect-
ing gun must sacrifice themselves. Instantly,
without waiting for orders, the fuse-setters and
layers flung aside their helmets. Our guns
opened up. The unmasked men lasted about
twenty minutes ; when they had been dragged out
of the gun-pits choking or in convulsions, two
more took their places without a second's hesita-
tion. This went on for upwards of two hours.
The reason given by the gunners for their splen-
did, calculated devotion to duty was that they
weren't going to let their pals in the trenches
down. You may call their heroism devotion to
duty or anything you like; the motive that in-
spired it was love.

When men, having done their " bit " get safely

home from the Front and have the chance to live

among the old affections and enjoyments, the

. onemory of the splendid- -sharing of the trendies

-Caljsjhem back; That memory blots out alLthe

txagedy and squalor; they think oftheir willing
comrades in sacrifice and cannot rest .

I was with a young officer who was probably

THE GLORY OF THE TRENXHES 135

the most wounded man who ever came out of
France ahve. He had lain for months in hos-
pital between sandbags, never allowed to move,
he was so fragile. He had had great shell-
wounds in his legs and stomach ; the artery be-
hind his left ear had been all but severed. When
he was at last well enough to l>e discharged, the
doctors had warned him never to play golf or
polo, or to take any violent form of exercise
lest he should do himself a damage. He had
returned to Canada for a rest and was back in
London, trying to get sent over again to the
Front.

We had just come out from the Alhambra.
Whistles were being blown shrilly for taxis.
London theatre-crowds were slipping cosily
through the muffled darkness — a man and girl,
always a man and a girl. They walked very
closely; usually the girl was laughing. Suddenly
the contrast flashed across mv mind between this
bubbling joy of living and the poignant silence
of huddled forms beneath the same starlight, not
a hundred miles away in No Man's Land. He
must have l^een seeing the same vision and
making the same contrast. He pulled on my
arm. " I've got to go back."

" But you've done your ' bit," " T expostulated.

f

136 THE GLORY OF THE TRENCHES

" H ^ou do go back and don't get hit, you may
burst a ^Iggd" vessel bt somelhifigrrf-what thc-
doctors told "you is true.'^ ""

I?&3aited me beneath an arc-light. I could
see the earnestness in his face. " I feel about if
this way, '^?ie said, "it i'm out there~rm just

)S out there are jolly

tired : if I was there,_T'd b^ pMi^ to give s'^m^ chap
a rest."

TEat was love; for a man, if he told the truth,
wQuld_say,/' I hate the Front?'" Yet mosto'f us.

if vou ask us. " Do you"v^^anTto""go'back? " would
^nswer, " Yes, as fastasj can,'' Why? Partly
because it's difficult to go back, and in difficulty
lies a challenge; but mostly because wejqye the
^^"chaps. Not anvjwfinilar chap, hut all the fel-
lows, out there who are laughing and enduring.

Last time I met the most wounded man who
ever came out of France alive, it was my turn to
be in hospital. He came to visit me there, and
told me that he'd been all through the Vimy
racket and was again going back.

" But how did you manage to get into the game
again ? " I asked. " I thought the doctors
wouldn't pass you."

He laughed slily. " I didn't ask the doctors.
If you know the right people, these things can
always be worked."

THE GLORY OF THE TRENCHES 137

Afi^^cg^thnTi )in1f of the bravcry at the Front is
due to^our love of the folks we have left beKiiid.
We're proud of them; we want to give them
rpnc;on tr> be proud ofZ^s-." We want them t
share our spirit, and we don't want to let them
down! The 'fmesFTewarTI I've had "since I be-
Tame a soldier was when my father, who'd come
over from America to spend my ten days' leave
with me in London, saw me off on my journey
back to France. I recalled his despair when I
had first enlisted, and compared it VN'ith what
happened now. We were at the pier-gates,
where we had to part. I said to him, " H you
knew that I was going to die in the next month,
would you rather I stayed or went?" " Jkluch
rather you went," he answered. Those words
made me feel that 1 was the son of a soldier,
even if he did wear mufti. One would have to
play the game pretty low to let a father like that
down.

When_yi2a-^^mc to cuii!>iiii!r'tt.~n~rTTTittcr is al-
ways a selfish man. It's selfishness that makes a

man STcoward or a dcs^rtpr 1£ he's- iiua^danger-

otis place and runs away, all he's doing is think-
iffg~of himself.

" Tve Ix^en supposed to be talking about God As
We See Him. 1 don't know whether I have.
As a matter of fact if you had asked me, when

a

138 THE GLORY OF THE TRENCHES

I was out there, whether there was any rehgion
in the trenches, I should have repHed, " Certainly
not." Nnw that TVe beeri npi nf flip figrV|fi'na_fnr
a, while, I see that there is religion there: a re-
ligion which will dominate the world when the
war is ended — the religion of hprnism. It's a
religion in__which men don't pra^much. With
\me, before I went to the Front, prayer was a
/ habiT Qiif'there"! losYtSeTTabTfrwhaT'one^as
/ doing seemed sufhcient. ITgpt the feeling tTiat I
migRffe- nieeliii^ God at any moment, so I didn't
need jto be worrying Him all the time, hanging on
to a spiritual telephone and feeling slighted if He
didn't answer me' directly I rangTHim U2.„__I|_
God was really interested in me, He didn't need
constant reminding. When He had a world to
manage, it seemed best not to interrupt Him with
frivolous petitions, but to put my prayers into my
work. That's how we all feel out there.

God as we see Him ! I couldn't have told you
how I saw Him before I went to France. It's
funny — you go away to the most damnable un-
dertaking ever invented, and you come back
cleaner in spirit. The one thing that redeems
the horror is that it does make a man momen-
tarily big enough, to be in sympathy with his
Creator — he gets such glimpses of Him in his
fellows.

THE GLORY OF THE TRENCHES 139

There was a time when I tliought it was
rather up to God to explain Himself to the crea-
tures He had fashioned — since then I've ac-
quired the point of view of a soldier. T^-^ leamt
discipline and my _own^ total unimportance. In
the Army discipline gets possession of your soul;
vou^learn to suppress yourself, to obey implicitly,
toJ:liink of others before yourselTT Y^u learn"
to jump at an order, to forsake your own con-
venience at any hour of the day or~nighT, to go
foru-ax^bri the "mo?t lonpiy ai""' rimifr^^rf-timjpr-"
r^ds without complaining. You learn to feel

that~tHereis only one thing that counts liTTiTe
and only one thing you can make out ot ft— the 4
spirit you have developed in aniMnintcring iti;—^'^^'^

OJ^

di£6e«kies. Vour body is nojjiing: it can~be
gashed in a minute. Haw-irail it is xqsa neveg- -^
realise until you have seen men^mashcd. So
you learn to tolerate the "BodyT^o despise DeatlT

and topTace'all youfTeliance on courage — which
wTien It is touncT'at its best is the power to endure
for the sake of others.

When we think of God, we think of Him in
just about the same way that a Tommy in the
front-line thinks of Sir Douglas Haig. Heaven
is a kind of General Headquarters. All that the
Tommy in the front-line knows of an offensive
is that orders have reached him, through the

¥

I40 THE GLORY OF THE TRENCHES

appointed authorities, that at zero hour he will
dimb out of his trench and go over the top to
meet a reasonable chance of wounds and death.
He doesn't say, " I don't know whether I will
climb out. I never saw Sir Douglas Haig — ■
there mayn't be any such person. I want to have
a chat with him first. If I agree with him, after
that I may go over the top — and, then again, I
may not. We'll see about it."

Instead, he attributes to his Commander-in-
Chief the same patriotism, love of duty, and
courage which he himself tries to practice. He
believes that if he and Sir Douglas Haig were to
change places, Sir Douglas Haig would be quite
as willing to sacrifice himself. He obeys; he
doesn't question.

That's the way every Tommy and officer comes
to think of God — as a Commander-in-Chief
whom he has never seen, but whose orders he
blindly carries out.

The religion of the trenches is not a religion
whi'Ctr^nalyses God with imperrinent—speeuk-
tionT l't"Tsi?"t a religion which tal?es up much of
His tirne^_ It's a religion whjrh tparhps men to
carry_^n_stoutlv and to say. " I've tried to do
my bit as best I know how. I guess God knows
it. If I ' go west ' to-day, He'll remember that

THE GLORY OF THE TRENCHES 141

I played the game. So I guess He'll forget about
my sins and take me to Himself."

ThntJ^jlie^ simple rolif^inn ni ihe trpnrlif">_as I
h;ffe" learnt it — a religion not without glory
to carry on a.^ bravely as you know hovy^an'
to'trust God without worrying Him.

THE END

lit

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